


Further From Home

by HerbertBest



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bird Sanctuaries, Busking, Contemplation, Conversations, Cunnilingus, Drug Use, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Eating Contests, First Kiss, Flash Forward, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gambling, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Jealousy, Kid Fic, Layovers, Marijuana, Multi, Music, Mutual Masturbation, Outdoor Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Road Trips, Romance, Serenading, Song Lyrics, Stargazing, Step-parents, Travel, Vaginal Sex, Vomiting, Wedding Reception, Weddings, adjustments, edibles, parental concern, streaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 15:14:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11694333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/pseuds/HerbertBest
Summary: Dan and Holly team up to travel cross-country to Brian and Ross' wedding.  Along the way, Dan starts to wonder if the price of being a constantly on the go musician is too high and Holly wonders if she's as happily adjusted to Brian and Ross' union as she thought she was.  Warily, and with tender hearts, they begin to contemplate entering into a romance with one another.Meanwhile, Ross has difficulty adjusting to step parenthood and Brian deals with anxiety over his ex wife's younger,  accomplished new boyfriend.  As the wedding approaches, both couples have to figure out what they want most out of life, choosing between taking a major step forward - or letting go forever.





	Further From Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Game Grumps Big Bang in 2017.
> 
> As Brian's asked for fanfic writers to avoid using his daughter's name in stories, the "Audrey" stand in character in this fic is referred to as "baby" or "the baby".
> 
> Thank you to Caitlin and Ty for moral support, angel_ascending for beta and Void/ToothyVoid/MysticGator for claiming me for art!

**We are the same people  
** only further from home  
– Lawrence Ferlinghetti, _“A Coney Island of the Mind”_

  
art by [Void](https://huny-bee.tumblr.com/post/163752152114/so-heres-my-contribution-to-the-game-grumps-big)

“So,” Ross said, tapping his fingers nervously on Holly’s kitchen table. “Brian and I’re getting married.”

The world stopped for just a second, going to fuzz around the edges of Holly’s vision. Some part of her always knew she would hear those words come from Ross’ lips. That didn’t mean she was properly braced to endure the sound of them, to realize that the man her husband had left her for would soon be HIS husband. 

She was aware of Ross’ staring. “Holly, are you okay?”

“I need more tea.”

Ross was well-versed in helping her through panic attacks by now, and he ordered her extra tea before making a comforting sound, a soothing noise, trying to convince her that all was well.

“When did he propose?” she asked, after a civilizing draught.

“At baby's Gymboree class.” His eyes went fond and Holly managed a shaky smile. “He got down on one knee. I couldn’t believe it – I almost pissed myself.” He took a drink himself. “We’re going to get married in four months, during summer vacation.”

“Isn’t that awfully quick?” she wondered.

“We planned our wedding in…” he winced, instantly regretting bringing up their marriage. “Sorry.”

She shrugged. “You can’t spend the rest of your life pretending we were never married.”

“You’re the best, Hol,” he smiled. “That’s why I’ve got something important to ask you.” He cleared his voice then and, melodramatically, said, “Holly Conrad, would you do the honor of being my best woman?”

“Aww. Still can’t perform without me in the room, huh?”

Ross snickered. “Oh, you know how well I can perform. So does Brian.”

Was it weird, Holly wondered as she awkwardly laughed at Ross’ joke, to be sitting here making small talk with her ex? Shouldn’t she be angry and bitter still over what happened?

Not anymore she supposed. Now she only felt a vague bittersweetness when she watched Ross play with his soon-to-be-stepdaughter, felt a sadness when he bent over a couch to kiss the top of Brian’s head. They’d worked long and hard to salvage the marriage, and then salvage the friendship. At least now the pain in her gut had dulled away.

“So will you come?” he asked, his voice innocent this time.

She smiled this time, when he asked. “Yeah. I’ll come.”

***

Dan almost tripped over a divot in the pasture when he heard the news. “What?! You’re getting married now?”

The wheedling tone that overtook Dan’s voice was enough to make him wince, but Brian gave him a roll of the eyes on the screen of his phone. “Yes, Danny. We’re getting married today, right in the middle of the band’s photo shoot, in San Bernardino during the hot pepper festival.”

Dan had been, in fact, standing in the middle of an open pasture while waiting for Brian to arrive, trying to dodge cow patties in his new sneakers and sparkly bell bottoms. “Bri! We have a video shoot next week and a tour in six months…”

“Which is why we’re getting married four months from today,” Brian said. “We’ll take two weeks for a vacation and then you’ll have me for a whole two weeks for rehearsals.”

Dan sighed. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Absolutely.”

“And your daughter?”

“Fucking loves him.”

The corner of Dan’s mouth quirked up. “And who’s your best man?”

“I don’t know, I was thinking of asking Brent…”

“Dude, what the fuck?!”

“Fine. I suppose I could ask you if you promise to wear a shirt and not to stick the rings up your nose during the vows.”

“That’s so uncool.”

“I love you, too.”

***

“Wait,” Holly said, between sips of tea. “Why do you need me to drive you to New Jersey for Brian and Ross’ wedding?”

Dan swirled his spoon through the cup of tea, watching it distribute the sugar that had sunk into its deep china belly. “Because Brian’s got custody of my van ‘til the end of his honeymoon, and I have to drive it out to him. I could fly out but I want to take my time – see some things I haven’t seen before I meet up with Brian to take on my best man duties. I thought that might be fun with a friend.”

Holly considered his offer quietly. She was still conflicted by the notion of going to her ex-husband’s wedding, but she admitted to herself that she wanted to spend a little time with a close friend. Dan was that – comfortable and reliable as the sunrise. “There’s no one else you’d rather go with?”

“No one. Come on, Holly. I’ll pay for the gas. We’ll have fun, please?”

She sat contemplating his needy, anxious face. There was something about Dan; something core and crucial to his personality that made her feel protective of him. Maybe it was his innocence, the way it clashed with his native experience. Maybe it was because he’d always been so unwaveringly good to her. Maybe it was because he hadn’t dumped her during the divorce process.

Maybe, simply, it was because he was Dan.

“Okay,” she finally said. “We’ll take the truck and go.”

He absolutely beamed at her. “I promise you, you won’t regret this.”

She gave him a wary little smile over the top of her teacup. That remained to be seen.

***

Weeks later, they went halves on the first tank of gas, and Holly filled it while Dan washed it up. A few minutes later they stood back and admired their handiwork.

“Do you think we’ll make it there in one piece?” she wondered. Dan winced as her ukulele made a dying cat noise, whacking against her knee as she climbed into the passenger side seat. 

“I absolutely believe we’ll be fine,” Dan said. She strapped herself in as he came around the driver’s side. Holly’s smile was thin-pressed but she was vividly alive as she settled beside him, her smile wide, her eyes bright. She looked better than she had since the divorce.

He pushed that thought away and started the car. Adventure lay ahead, new and shiny, and it would be nice to explore unfamiliar territory with someone so dear to him.

*** 

“We have a crisis on our hands.”

Ross frowned as he held a squirming baby, passport in hand. “I don’t even get a ‘hello soulmate?’” 

Brian rolled his eyes. “Hello, soulmate,” he said flatly, and kissed him between the eyes. “We have a crisis on our hands.”

“Going to tell me what it is?” Ross asked.

“We’re going to have to take two different flights to Jersey.” He gave Ross a boarding pass, took his fussing daughter, who was all but shouting for her afternoon snack. Brian found a pack of animal crackers in his carry-on and handed them to her. “They overbooked the flight by forty people and I had to shout down the attendant who tried to put me on a midnight flight. Audrey would never be able to tolerate it.”

Ross glowered. “So we’re going to be stuck in this airport…”

“…For a couple of hours. Good thing they have a couple of places to eat on the second floor.”

Ross turned the baby around, giving her his best manic, playful monster grin. “How do you feel about that, honey? Wanna go eat?”

“Nope,” she said, and shoved a handful of animal crackers right into her mouth. 

Ross’ pained expression only grew more deeply lined. He handed the girl over to her father, and she smugly grinned at him, her two front teeth chipmunk-blunt.

“Please be nice to your…co-father,” Brian said, but the girl’s little face just squinched up as she ate more crackers. Brian sighed deeply. “While I’m at it, have a little more news. Rachel texted me this morning. She’s bringing Armand.”

Armand. He said the name as if someone was shoving something very large and uncomfortable up his urethra. 

“I don’t mind if you don’t mind,” Ross said. Armand wasn’t a bad guy; he treated Rachel like gold, was beloved of the little girl currently blowing her nose into Brian’s hand, was twenty-six, quadrilingual, had abs you could grate a wheel of cheese against….Okay, maybe Ross understood it better now.

“Then we won’t mind it together,” Brian grumbled. When Ross patted his cheek Brian’s features squashed into a flat, heavy line, as if he wanted to bite him in half with his sharp, bucky teeth.

Ross couldn’t stop himself from grinning back pertly, as if he were a perfect student teasing his teacher. Maybe they could work that into something fun later. Brian did have too many ties that had fallen into disuse now that he wasn’t lecturing regularly…

“Things might just turn out all right after all, heh, kiddo?” Ross asked the child.

The baby chose that moment to barf on Brian’s lap. Voluminously.

***

The dry heat of Arizona tickled Dan’s nostrils; his first real sign that they were far from home. Route 66 stretched on before him like a high wire, old fossils of abandoned truck stops and billboards gleaming up at them like artifacts of an alien race. He turned up the radio, and then flushed as he realized he hadn’t asked Holly what she’d wanted first. “Do you mind the music?”

“NO!” she yelled back, letting out a laugh. She’d taken her phone out and had been filming out the window when he’d caught her attention.

Dan flicked over to Sirius’ oldies station; they were playing Hotel California, which in his opinion was the second-best singalong song ever (at least next to Don’t Stop Believing). Holly knew the words, and when she joined the harmony she didn’t even sound half-bad.

Holly’s singing beside him was more than enough to get a grin out of Dan, even when she was singing about a hellish drug trip with no possible escape except through death.

Man, the Eagles were really deep when you thought about it.

One song segued into another, and anything he didn’t remember or understand she seemed to know. It was a kind of synchronicity he hadn’t experienced in ages, and it filled up Dan’s body like sunshine. 

The sun itself glimmered through Holly’s blue hair like fireflies as they drove through the desert, until the open space turned into small towns, concrete pathways. This was where the route joined up with various other throughways that led to faster highways, speedier exit points; if he was lucky they could make it to Las Vegas before it set. 

“Are you hungry?” he asked. It occurred to Dan that while they were singing together, fully harmonized, that he didn’t think of much else BUT singing beside her.

“Oh? Hmm, sure…” She put down her phone. “I guess there won’t be anything veganish if we stop at a diner, will there be? But I’ll eat anything that’s good,” she amended quickly.

Dan shrugged – off the main drag there were little hydroponic blocks of houses and shopping centers, car dealerships and restaurants blinking up at him, shiny and chrome. “Salads?”

She nodded and shrugged. “Salads always work.”

He smiled. “I’m surprised you’re not like, super into rabbits instead of birds.”

She laughed at the comparison, a sudden streak of beauty, something rare, soft and precious that Dan quite nearly couldn’t comprehend.

They reached a tiny diner, where she bought them an enormous pile of French fries, a burger for him and a fish sandwich for her (apparently they didn’t believe in lettuce at this place). Dan groaned as he ate his meal, letting the food roll over his tongue. All he knew was that it tasted amazing. The sudden idea to grab some cheese curds at the next stop popped into his head; that sounded like a winning combo.

“Do you think eating fish this far from the coastline is a bad idea?” Holly was a more tentative eater but her sandwich and the fries were slowly disappearing between sips of soda.

“Nah,” Dan said. “Besides, if you toss chunks I’ll totally hold your hair back.”

She smiled at him. “That’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.”

He grinned. “If that’s the nicest thing then I’m, like, not doing a good job at friending.”

Her small hand gently tugged at his wrist –probably to avoid his greasy fingertips. “You always do an amazing job at friending,” Holly said. “You’re the best ever at it always.”

Time passed. Her hand didn’t move from his wrist, and Dan’s mind drifted. It was nice being around Holly, easy and warm and fun and…

…oh God. Were they having a moment? Was this a moment? Should he be panicking right now or trying to take himself out of it? Should he move?

Before he could, she sheepishly shifted her hand away from his wrist. “So,” she said over-brightly, “I was thinking of stopping in at this comic book shop in Phoenix before we leave town. There’s some stuff I wanted to pick up as a wedding present for the guys and I figured we could squeeze it in before we take off for Vegas.”

“Huh,” Dan said. His own present was sitting in the back seat – he’d gotten them tickets to see the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. “Sure, I guess we have time to do that.”

She grinned. “Thank you, Dan.” 

As they headed back into the car and pulled back onto the highway, that pleasant feeling of togetherness, of niceness, returned to him. Like coming home, or being wrapped up in a blanket, his heart was comforted and cosseted. 

God, he must be really, really lonely. There was no way she was looking for him, looking at him, the way he was looking at her right now.

He was considering, and pushing at something she wasn’t even contemplating. Dan pushed it all back with a smile, but his feelings kept on leaking out, kept teasing at him, even as they pushed toward Phoenix.

*** 

The plane was crowded and it smelled kind of like burnt custard. Ross balanced the baby on his hip as he shoved his duffle bag in the overhead compartment. Brian had shoved her overnight bag between them and was now trying to find her a pacifier. He was wearing a pair of appealingly tight cargo shorts after Audrey had wrecked his slacks, and Ross couldn’t resist slapping his ass, just once, just hard enough to make him turn around and raise an eyebrow.

“Honestly, Ross, must you?” But Brian’s smirk said ‘yes, you must.’

“What’s wrong? Did you feel a stiff breeze?” Ross asked. Brian seemed to be completely unimpressed. “The baby didn’t notice anything!”

“I highly doubt she notices anything beyond Sesame Street and her own toes.” But then she looked up and smiled radiantly at him, and smiled back. Ross felt his own heart throb suddenly, with joy and with fear. 

This had never been part of his plan. His plan had involved Holly and monogamy and a show on Nickelodeon by the time he was thirty – not professional gaming, marriage to a professor ten years his senior and a little girl who was understandably iffy about his entire existence. 

He supposed he’d figure it out somehow, down the line…maybe when she was twenty. The baby was oblivious to his inner turmoil, and she sucked on her fist while watching Ross move with a look of complete disinterest on her face.

Ultimately, he and Brian sat with the baby between them – at nearly three she was just big enough to fit in her own seat securely, to his relief. Brian fiddled with his iPad and the Bubble Guppies began playing, fascinating her utterly.

Ross let out a sigh, settling into his seat and ordering a beer from the first passing stewardess. It had been a long trip already, and long trips required treats – in the kid’s case, it was crackers and tv shows, in Ross’ case, it was a big old bottle of beer.

They were fifty feet in the air before his beer came, and by then the girl was asleep, the iPad tucked between her teeth. Brian watched her with open, almost heartbreaking fondness, and Ross smiled. 

He gave Brian half of his beer, only to be sure that neither of them would be too intoxicated to handle dad duty.

“Someday, she’s going to take to you,” Brian said. “I promise.”

Ross shrugged. “If she doesn’t I want half the money she makes on whatever tell all comes from this mess.”

“It won’t be a mess, it’ll be an experience.”

Ross sighed and opened his phone. In airplane mode, surrounded by strangers and with the roaring of the plane’s engines in his ears, he accessed Reddit and logged in.

Two seconds later, he was typing into the subject line, _It’s Ross, I’m on a plane going to Jersey to be married(!!) in two weeks  
(not on the plane), AMA._

 

****

Holly’s phone beeped with the text alert announcing Ross’ AMA a few minutes after they crossed over the threshold of Rivendell Comics. Dan noticed the look on her face and automatically put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?” Dan asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, after a moment of steadying. And she really was fine; long ago she’d acclimated to the fact that there would always be Brian in Ross’ life, and he would always be another person on the planet who understood Ross’ quirks and behaviors and needs the way she did. Being presented with the evidence of their new life, however, did make her feel a little uneasy.

Then suddenly there was a plaster statue of Stephen Strange hovering between the two of them and she let out a shrieking laugh. “Where did you get that?”

“The glass case up front,” Dan said. “He conjured himself up and I had to buy him for you.”

She instantly felt bashful, as if she were a teenager once again, being asked awkwardly out by a boy. “Oh, Dan! You don’t have to do that!”

“I insist,” he said. “It’s not like money’s a big issue right now, and there’s nobody I’d rather treat.”

She shook her head. “That’s so sweet,” she said, her fingertips ghosting over Stephen’s grey beard. She had plenty of statues back at the house, but this one was older, a collectible that was probably from sometime in the 1970s; a bank with a rubber stopper somewhere below its black booted feet. It probably had started life as some kid’s bank before wending its way to the comic shop. 

“I’ll go pay for him while you get whatever you wanted to get Ross and Brian.” Dan turned from the scene and carried his gains away to be tended to.

She thanked Dan again, and kept sneaking glances at him as she paid for her purchase. From behind the counter came a large, elaborate chess set; the pieces were carved from onyx and marble, and the top was crafted from glass and porcelain. Dan whistled as they watched it get wrapped up. “They’ll love that. Brian’s super into chess. He’s not as good at it as I am, though,” he lightly bragged.

Holly smiled at his blandishments. “You and Brian have played chess together?”

“Oh yeah. I could teach you, if you want.”

She shrugged. “I’ll think about it. But when did you ever have enough time to play at chess with him?”

“There’s not a lot to do when you’re stuck together at the back of a bus,” he said.

Holly tilted her head at his tone of voice but didn’t ask him why he sounded so…sad, honestly. They took a little time to check the receipt before heading out the front door.

She took a little time to really enjoy the scenery before they had to move on. “It’s been so long since I’ve been out here,” Holly said, perching one more time at the curb, taking a last picture of the pink-red sky before clicking across the tarry parking lot. “Have you ever been here before?”

“Only for a few minutes between flights,” he said. “I went mountain climbing in the desert with my sister and her friends once.”

Holly’s eyebrow quirked. “I’ve always wanted to go camping in the desert. It’s been years since I’ve even thought about it.”

Dan grinned. “Maybe on our way back we could sleep out under the stars. You, me and Doc Strange.”

Holly smiled, gently squeezing the plaster edifice as they strapped back into the car. It would be nice to spend time with Dan, an act that always seemed to give her a massive amount of peace.

Maybe if they made it all the way to Jersey and back, camping out with a chess set and Dan would be the worst idea ever, but for the moment it sounded like bliss.

*** 

Ross clicked away from another set of questions. He took a sip of beer every time he scrolled past a ‘God Damn it, Ross’, and found himself carefully tapering off after the first few entreaties. 

It was enough to make him hate people. Sort of. Almost. 

“Someone just asked me what the colors of the wedding are going to be,” he told Brian.

“We agreed on green,” Brian yawned. “Remember?”

“At this point? No, not at all,” he groaned, but clacked the answer out quickly. 

“If you like, I can take over for a couple of hours,” Brian said. “She’s asleep and you need as much rest as she does at this point.”

Ross shot a look at the sleeping infant and shrugged. “Wake me up when the peanut cart comes around?” he asked.

“I promise you I will not deprive you of their honeyed goodness.” Brian’s words were as flat as the horizon outside the window, and Ross smirked as he handed over the smart phone and rested his head on his lover’s shoulder.

*** 

Dan only realized how long an eight hour drive truly was when he pulled the van into the parking lot of the Excalibur. 

It was only three in the afternoon, which left them plenty of time to take in a show or play the slots. Whether a dozing Holly actually wanted to do either of those things was left up to fate, as she was snoozing silently beside him, Stephen Strange pressed tight to her breast.

He put the car in park and shut off the ignition. “Holly?” he said. “Put your sandals on sweetie, we’re here.”

She stirred, her eyelids flickering open and taking in his face. “Aww. Five more minutes, daddy?”

That statement sent a surprising shock to his nuts. “No, princess, it’s time to get up.” He’d grabbed his suitcase out of the back of the truck while Holly stretched out her arms and followed him.

She blinked as the sandblasted turrets of the hotel rose up before her. “Really, Dan?”

His laugh was goofy but good natured. He couldn’t resist the joke even though it was a weirdly flirty one. “Right, okay,” he said. “Do you want me to carry you or can you walk?”

“I’m sleepy, Dan, not a baby,” she grumped at him.

“Oh, fine,” said Dan, “what do you want to do? Crawl on your knees?”

She opened the door and yawned. “Walking will suit.”

The inside of the casino was a glossy, candy-colored nightmare. Dan loved every inch of it, from the palatial ceilings to the fake-gold floors. Holly seemed quietly less impressed with it all – Dan imagined her out in the middle of an open field, hanging out with birds, and realized why the glitz bouncing off the lenses of her glasses and shining in her hair looked so paltry.

The word echoed in his brain, nearly made him stop mid-step. He adored everything about Vegas – the glitz, the glamour, the busy pace. But he liked it better when he wasn’t alone. He liked it when he had a friend to walk with, or a lover to show off to. There it was again, his perpetual need for an audience, always making his life a display….

And now he was stuck up in his own brain, trying to figure out why he was spinning his wheels. What the hell was his problem? Did he even have a right to have a problem at this point in his life? He was rich, he had beautiful women at his beck and call, his career was just starting to take off, his family and friends were all healthy and safe….

So what was it? What was making him feel so off-balance and out of tune?

“Dan?” Holly tugged on his arm. “You look a little scared. What’s wrong?”

Dan chuckled nervously. “Nothing, I promise! I’m just thinking about things.”

“You are?” She seemed a little dazed by it all – almost overstimulated. He felt a surge of protectiveness overtake his neurons. A natural reaction whenever he was around a woman he liked, but the sudden degree of it made him pause and actually think for a moment. Why the hell did he feel that way? 

“Yeah,” he said thickly. Suddenly before them rose a line of flashing, glimmering nickel slots. “Hey, wanna play the slots for awhile?” 

She shrugged. “I’m not really much of a gambling person.” But she was watching the lights flash and she was smiling. Dan went ahead and bought a few dollars worth of nickels, and soon they were sitting side by side, plugging change into the machine in amiable silence. 

It was easier to keep rolling for fruit than to consider what was going on under the surface.

***

“Well. That was fun.” 

Ross picked his bag up as Brian juggled the sleeping toddler in his arms. “Let’s be positive,” he said. “The plane didn’t actually crash.”

“Be more positive.”

“The engines didn’t smoke? We didn’t have to fight the guy in front of us for oxygen masks?”

Ross nodded. “Yep. At least it’s an emergency landing we managed to live through.”

“I don’t believe it ran low on fuel,” Brian muttered. “Don’t they know what the hell they’re doing when it comes to design and form of function anymore? We can get a shuttle to the moon and a passenger plane to France in hours, but one kid forgets to plug enough jet fuel into a tank and hundreds of people have to live with the danger.” He squeezed the baby close to his chest and she mumbled in her sleep, drooled against the pocket of his sensible polo shirt.

Ross reached out and squeezed Brian’s hand. “You know design. And you know people IN design,” said Ross. “Don’t you have any friends who are into planes?”

“Yes. The physics department was swarming with fighter pilots.”

“Not what I meant,” he said. But Brian was smiling. “We’re okay, dude. We’re fine.”

“I’m aware,” said Brian. His grip on the baby lightened slightly as he carried her toward the next boarding gate. They’d promised to get everyone on their flight on the next plane out, and had made it just in time to grab the next connecting flight to New Jersey.

The process took what felt like hours. Ross grunted and bounced from foot to foot, pure annoyance decorating his ever gesture and movement. He wanted to be in Jersey and have the weirdness of initial meetings and being in a new place under his belt and over with already. 

The woman waiting for them was smiling, and willing to wave them through early due to the baby’s age.

But her perky typing quickly stopped, and she frowned at the screen. “Hmm,” she said. “Could I have your passes one more time? There seems to be some sort of system error.”

Ross was ready to jump over the console and reprogram the entire process himself. He’d do it and he’d be happy TO do it just so he could be free and clear of this nightmare.

“Hmm…” she radioed someone. “Do we have any more seats on there?”

A crackle. “Yeah, I don’t think we’re gonna be able to take more than one.”

“Sorry,” she said, before either of them could argue, “But combining the flights has resulted in it being overbooked by two. One of you can fly ahead, and we’ll gladly let the baby fly free on the next flight…”

“And when is the next flight?” Brian’s features were a tight mask of stress.

“Well…tomorrow morning,” she said nervously.

“A DAY?” Ross was yelling. Actually yelling. He hadn’t shouted at a serviceperson in ages and he immediately felt guilty about it.

“If you would prefer,” she said, resuming her tapping, “we could route you through Minnesota to Virginia and then to Boston back to New Jersey, but…”

“…Forget it,” Brian groaned, holding out his passport. He leaned closer to Ross, “what do you want to do? We can’t both fly with the baby and I don’t want to send you to Jersey alone. My sister’s kind but the situation would be…awkward with Rachel.”

“So you’re asking me to take the baby and watch her until you can get home.”

“Precisely.”

Ross cringed. “Ahhh…I haven’t exactly been…alone with her yet…” he glanced again at the baby in Brian’s arms. She was still drooling into his collar and Brian hadn’t noticed, hadn’t even mentioned it. Was that some kind of Jedi dad power? Did parenthood numb the part of you with self-preservation? 

Shouldn’t he have known all of this before Brian had proposed to him? 

“No better time to start than now.” Brian held the baby out, and she began to stir. 

“Maybe we should refund the passes,” Ross suggested. 

“Um…” the attendant spoke up, “your passes are nonrefundable because they were booked through our frequent flier miles club program. If you like, I could…”

“Of course,” Ross said, almost laughing at the absurdity of the situation, even though he was livid. He was going to get on Reddit. He was going to get on Twitter. He was going to tell three million plus people not to fly with this airline, and bring down the hammer of great internet justice….

And then his arms were filled with warm, sleepy, whining toddler. “They’ll be happier to see you with an armful of baby,” said Brian. Ross hoped that was actually true because God, he wanted to make a decent impression on Brian’s sister – he’d never met her before, and had likely only heard terrible things about how he was a “homewrecking twink” (the internet’s choice of words) or something terrible like that. Rachel already knew him and had mostly forgiven him, but being alone with her would be awkward. Understandably, because she had been with Armand throughout the divorce. And you could grate cheese on that man’s abs, even Ross would be thrilled to forgive him for anything.

And even Ross thought Armand was a great catch. Not as good as Brian, of course, but a great guy who treated the baby like a little angel. Instead of a drooly, tiny mess of a human being.

As the attendant stamped Brian’s passport, he took it back and he patted the baby’s head, kissed her curly locks, made soft, grumbling sounds of comfort and affection. The printer whined as it inked a ticket for him. “I am entirely, wholly, filled with regret over doing this to you.”

“I know. I’ll wreak my vengeance later. And you know you can just say you’re sorry,” Ross said, as bounced her back and forth, making soft soothing noises in the back of his throat and through his nose. She pouted, pushed away from his skinny chest – looked up at him with mild disdain. 

“I would, if I didn’t want to facepunch the last ticket agent,” he said. The woman behind the desk looked alarmed as she handed Brian his boarding pass. “No offense.”

The baby was fully awake now, and her voice came out as a tinny shout that almost startled Ross into dropping her. “Where’s daddy going?” she asked, pouting up at him.

“I’ve gotta get on the plane,” Brian said, and as she teared up his eyes grew to enormous proportions. “I promise I’ll facetime with you, okay, sweetie? The plane people say you have to come with Ross to auntie’s tomorrow.”

“I wanna go with you,” she whined.

“I know, daddy knows,” he murmured. He kissed Ross over her head. “Be good for Ross, okay? It’s really important that you be good around him.”

“OK,” she mumbled, still sounding teary. The sadness was enough to bother him – he wasn’t made of stone, after all, and he liked the little girl even if he didn’t understand her. Brian hugged the both of them, rested his head on Ross’ shoulder, then let go and ran toward the right terminal, the right gate, his suitcase swinging like a flag at his side, a last boarding call ringing out over the loudspeaker. 

“I love you!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Bye bye!”

“Bye bye,” she echoed, waving her small hands, tiny pink daisy-spangled sandals flopping loosely in the air and hitting Ross’ wrist.

He turned toward the counter again. “I’m gonna book those tickets to Jersey now,” he said. He realized that he was tapped as he handed over his card to the joint account he’d created with Brian. Youtube was dilatory in their weekly deposit – he’d have to draw on his last resort, the final hundred dollars he had in a joint account with Holly that they’d been dithering over closing forever. 

That was going to be an argument, but it was better than letting the baby live off of snacks.

“Would you like to upgrade your tickets to first class?” the attendant asked, taking his bank card.

“No. Thank you,” Ross said flatly, shoving them into the front pocket of his jeans. He carried the baby out of the terminal, his phone already buzzing with texts from Brian. He put the squirming toddler down on her feet to answer them and was bombarded with nutritional information and bedtime instructions. His backpack and the baby’s bag slapped his sides as he jogged after the running, screeching toddler. “DON’T GO SO FAST!” he yelled, and she skidded to a stop, falling on her padded bottom. She got up laughing and Ross sighed at the folly. “Geez, you’re a good runner,” he said. “Where do you wanna have supper, kid?” he bent down, cupping his palms onto his knees.

She considered. “Chuck E Cheese’s!” she sang out loud.

“Oh no,” Ross said. 

“WHERE A KID CAN BE A KID!” she shout-sang, running around him in circles. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, groaning. Fine. He supposed this was the best way to let her blow steam without worrying about Brian.

_Taking her to Chuck E. Cheeses’ after I load up on cash. That’s the place with the mouse, right?_

A minute passed, and the phone chimed.

**Don’t let her have the all-meat pizza, and wash her hands after she plays with the games. You aren’t scared of singing rats, are you?**

_No. Should I be?_

**Why no! Why would I ever suggest it?**

Ross laughed. He loved it when Brian got saucy with him. He shoved his phone into his pocket, grabbed her hand and together they walked to the nearest ATM.

 

*** 

Holly realized she’d spent everything in her pocket when the last quarter plopped into the machine and made a bleating sound, rolling up two cactuses and a bell. She’d completely zoned out while playing, and instantly felt guilty about wasting an obscene amount of money. She glanced back over her shoulder and a few feet away she could make out a head of curly hair - could spy Dan at the craps table, flirting with the blonde-haired dealer, a glass of water in his hand.

Of course, she thought to herself, dry-eyed and cynical. He would find a pretty girl to flirt with.

The thought made her stop. Was she actually jealous? Why in the world would she be jealous of him? This was Dan, the guy who had been her weird quasi older brother and one of Ross’ best friends for years. She’d seen him yak all over himself after climbing off a log flume and she’d watched him laugh until he cried at a youtube poop she’d dug up for him – it was pain old Dan, and the comfort level between them had always been somewhat easygoing, and never erotically charged. Even when things were weird between the three of them after Ross and Brian had come out and declared their intention to be together, a month after they’d….no she didn’t want to linger on that memory, not ever again. 

Even in her loneliness, facing down the fact of her single life, she knew thinking of Dan as a romantic prospect would result in nothing but folly. Every other month, he had a new girlfriend. This one for real, he’d say, starry-eyed, smiling and overjoyed at having found her at last. She’d meet the girl – tall and pink-haired, curvy and blonde, a stunning redhead or brunette. Then, suddenly, Dan would find some flaw in the relationship, it would go cool, and they would part as friends. Or he would be dumped and spend an evening sobbing into a piece of pizza and tell her about it later, an easy, light-hearted joke he could throw around just to make things seem unimportant, as if every wound left behind on his skin were nothing more than a simple joke. There was something soft about Dan, vulnerable, kind, that automatically made her protective of him.

She approached quietly. “Are you ready to go?” she asked, squeezing the strap of her purse. Her suitcase slapped her upper thigh, and she thought to herself how lovely a warm bubble bath and a huge bowl of soup in her empty stomach would feel. 

“Almost…just one more roll…” 

The silver ball dinked into place. “Sixteen,” said the dealer.

“OH COME ON!” Dan yelled, and then flushed as every head in the room turned in his direction. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She clasped his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go upstairs…we’ll order dinner, watch a nice movie.”

“Holly,” he said calmly, “I can’t do that.”

“Are your legs numb from sitting down so long?” she worried.

“We literally can’t, Holly,” he said, fear rising in his voice.

“But the key’s right in my hand.”

“I’ll have to take that,” said the dealer sadly. Holly elbowed him.

Jealousy – hard and cold – formed a ball in her stomach, knotting it inexplicably into a mess of acid. “Dan, next time if you wanna be alone with a girl, just ask me first!”

“We’re not,” the woman said flatly. 

“What’s going on, then?” Holly asked.

“I ran out of pocket money and I cleared out my checking. I never, ever do this oh my God,” he groaned, raking his fingers through the messy nest of his hair. “I bet with our room fee and I swear, I thought it was going to roll eight…”

“Well, we’ll…ask our friends for a loan. Dan, why are you making that sound?” He stopped groaning. And then he mumbled something indistinctly into his forearm. “What?”

“Ha ha,” Dan laughed anxiously, leaning back in his chair. “I just lost the car.”

 

*** 

Holly didn’t have time to be angry. She was too nervous to think and soon too busy to comprehend much. And as she stared at the ATM telling her her joint account with Ross had just been cleared out, she felt as if she could had contemplated only one thing anyway, pure murder. Or at least giving him a wet willie. 

The credit lines were plumbed first – Dan’s Mastercard was denied, and his AMEX had been cancelled after he’d been pick pocketed in Scotland last spring. Holly had no charge cards to her name at all – she’d cut them up when she divorce was finalized and neglected to get new ones sans Ross’ name. Then friends and relatives were checked on - they started calling around to figure out who would float them loans. Dan’s parents were in Italy and not answering his texts; his sister was in a yurt in Manitoba with the family. Brent’s phone rang off the hook, and she realized suddenly that it was nine at night – maybe he was asleep, maybe he was tending to some other business matter that neither of them had a clue about, and Brian’s phone went to text – he was on an airplane, the last connecting flight to Jersey, his away message said. She didn’t want to bother Ross – if he’d drained the charge account then he had to be in trouble of his own. They were worth thousands of dollars – this was the most ridiculous thing she could think of.

When Dan called Arin, he picked up on the first ring.

“I’d give you it if I could, man,” Arin said, loudly, as was his typical want – so loudly that she could hear him through the distance, “but I just handed out payroll. I’m cash poor and the bank’s closed, but you should both get something in there tomorrow. D’you want me to Western Union a couple of thou over and…”

“Nooot from the way this girl’s looking at me,” Dan said.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m a woman.”

Dan laughed nervously. “Holly could wait, but I think they’re gonna take the car for collateral. I didn’t sign anything – wait, can they even do that if I didn’t sign anything? How does that work?”

“I dunno man, you’re in Las Vegas, everything’s weird there.”

“You mean awesome,” Dan said, though the conviction in his voice wavered slightly. 

“Sir,” she said flatly, “either pay your debt or we’ll be forced to call the police.”

“We’ll figure out a way,” Holly said.

“But I’m Danny Sexbang!” he said, “don’t you know me? Uh, the Take on Me dude?!” the woman stared at him blankly as he blinked at himself. “I…did I just do the ‘do you know who I am’ thing?”

“You did. And you have an hour before I give your room away and put a boot on the car until you pay off your debt to us.” She immediately asked for the person behind them to step up with their winnings, and Dan and Holly awkwardly shuffled aside, down a long neon-lit hallway. Soon they were standing outside of the casino’s main exit, in front of a massive fountain, trying to figure out what to do. An idea formulated for her quickly, and she knew Dan in his panicked state wouldn’t be of much use to himself. 

“Fucking…” Dan groaned and took a deep breath, letting out a low, impassioned groan of agony. “Do you have any good ideas, Hol?” 

“Well,” she said, “we could walk to the next hotel over and see if anyone knows us. We could see if any of your Vegas friends will let us couch-surf…” she reached into the pocket of her skirt, and suddenly held out a key. “or we can use this spare key.”

Dan’s eyes bulged. “You wonderful, genius of a woman.” He reddened as he realized he’d spoken the compliment out loud.

“I found it in the glove compartment,” she admitted. “I thought I’d keep it with me, in case we somehow got locked out.”

He grinned at her. “Thank you for your foresight,” he said. “Now,” he added quickly, “we just need to get the money I blew back.”

She smiled. “I do have my ukulele in the trunk….”

*** 

What they were doing was, as far as Holly knew, totally and completely illegal. But they shoved their suitcases into the car, drove around until they found a parking lot with decent foot traffic and large floodlights, and a McDonalds with a shady bench. Holly upended her hat and they attached a note to the brim of it, written on a scrap of newspaper: 

**Donations wanted.**

Dan found an abandoned paper towel tube to shout into, and his voice boomed out over the roasting hot suburban concrete.

“Hello! My name is Danny Sexbang, and this is my assistant…Birdwoman!” 

Holly shook her head and plucked out a few notes on her uke. She did know a few of Dan’s songs – the chord progressions weren’t terribly hard to figure out, especially if you were on set listening to them play over and over again.

Dan was sitting right at her side, singing strongly. She managed to follow the tune – A highly censored version of Dinosaur Laser Fight, and Dragon Slayer, followed by Don’t Stop Believing, the king of the four chord pop songs – and soon they had quite a nice gathering of people surrounding them.

A breezed kissed Holly’s arms as the music filled the air, and it was hot but this was her ultimate element, the rising desert wind behind her, the sound of Dan’s voice in her ears and the beauty of making people happy.

“Do you know how to play ‘Tiny Dancer’?” he asked.

“Sort of,” she admitted. “Do you know Close To You?”

“Kind of. But would Danny?” 

“Are you Danny right now?”

He grinned, suddenly all gums and teeth. “I guess not!”

The music blended into the booming of the traffic and the chatter of the passing patrons. People pitched dollars into the hat; sometimes she heard the jingle of change, and was grateful, smiling, for all of it. She remembered her youth – recalled her hunger, the scramble for each meal. This was a way to pay tribute to her younger self, the girl who ran wild in the desert, singing and laughing and playing video games with her friends.

Dan’s presence was a calming aura beside her, cool and sweet, and she felt incredibly grateful for his calmness. And he was so talented, so together, so quietly real and so completely good at holding an audience in the palm of his hand. Even a small one like this.

In the break between songs she took in their faces – two squeaking, excited teenagers in tank tops, a few older women, families who thought they were on some sort of mission from God. 

“Ain’t you rich?” one of the women asked, and Dan blushed. 

“Not today!” He said, sounding almost frantic in his bravado. Holly bit back a laugh, shook her head, plucked at the ukulele. When the police arrived they had enough to escape with -five songs and they had a hat filled with bills – enough to keep them alive until their checks hit the bank. They took pictures and signed autographs, and climbed back into the car a couple of triumphant heroes. 

“You were great back there,” Dan said, as they packed up and pulled out of the lot. 

“You think so?” she asked.

“Holly, you’re totally the fucking best musician ever, trust me.” 

The words gave her a glowing sense of prideful accomplishment even hours later, lying awake in a tiny room adjacent to his, a neon sign throbbing just outside the window and her suitcases sinking into a mold gray colored shag carpet. 

She dreamed she was a rock star that night, with blue hair and a ukulele that spat fire on command.

****

Ross laughed like a villain from a bad 30s serial as the ski ball machine spat a string of tickets into his eager hand. Beside him the baby was hopping up and down in glee, just overjoyed by the noise more than the fact that he was totally going to get her one of those sweet Chuck stuffed animals in the prize booth.

“Ross!” she yelled. “Wanna go on the train!!” She pointed a mechanical vehicle several feet behind them, shiny and chrome, from which a four year old had just descended while shrieking like an invading alien in a bad sci fi movie.

“Okay,” he said, stuffing the tickets into his hoodie pocket. “Do you need to go potty and are you super sure you’re not hungry?”

“YES!” she yelled, eyes filled with childish delight.

“Okay, but you have to hold on real tight.” He double checked the instructions twice before letting her climb into the basket and sit down. A couple of tokens sent it bouncing to life while she “Wheee!”’d at the top of her lungs.

Ross smiled as he pulled his phone. Without even looking at Brian’s frantic textstorm, he called Brian’s number, knowing that in the two hours that had passed he’d safely landed, he rang his number. Brian choked out a hello through a full mouth, and Ross eagerly plunged ahead. 

“She had two pieces of pizza, water, and a thing of applesauce. No ice cream, just like I promised. We’re going to get a room at the Days Inn down the street, and I’ll put her down at nine. They have Noggin and Nick Junior and PBS Kids, so we won’t need you to send over those extra episodes of Bubble Guppies.”

There was a pause and then evident surprise in his fiance’s voice when he spoke. “Yes,” Brian said. “Thank you for taking such good care of her.”

“It’s no trouble,” Ross said. And he meant it. Maybe Brian was right, they did need a little more alone time together, and he really did need to get used to doing a quarter of the parenting now that the two of them were going to be together. If anything ever happened to Brian he’d be in charge. His heart shrank at the idea -not of taking care of the baby, but of something terrible happening to Brian. “How’s your sister?”

“My sister, her family, and her dog are excited. Thrilled to meet you…Brownie, please stop trying to pull the sandwich from my hand. Yes. Thank you. You’re a fine dog.”

Ross laughed into the phone. “Dogs always love you, baby. What’s your secret?”

“It’s my steak scented cologne. You never noticed? I’m ashamed of you, darling. “ 

“There are many, many things on my mind,” Ross pointed out. “Like keeping our child safe and making sure I have enough tokens to keep this choo choo on the tracks.”

“You just said choo choo. I think I’m in love.”

The train stopped, and Ross plucked another token into the machine. “You’d better think it.” The brass engagement rings they both wore as a permanent sign of their connection. He’d go to his grave wearing this ring and the simple bands they’d picked out at Brian’s cousin’s jewelry store. 

“Of course,” Brian said sincerely – or as sincerely as he could muster up any sort of emotion. It was Brian, after all – ‘I love you’, unless it was directed to his daughter or to someone much more vulnerable and small than him, was usually followed by a playful jab or a death stare. But Ross couldn’t deny the fondness they shared – and that he loved the way Brian effortlessly called out his bullshit.

The same way Holly used to. 

Wrong thought, wrong time. “Good. Because I love you, and in a week I’m gonna lock that…bottom down.”

“Thank you,” said Brian awkwardly, and Ross bit a soft laugh back. They said goodbye, and he convinced the baby to help him play one of the video games at the back of the room.

Three hours later, lying in a borrowed motel room, cheerful, hygienic and uniform, awake and listening to ambient noises echoing against his eardrums, the familiar and loved sounds of a space shuttle mixing with the soft, querulous sounds of a dreaming toddler, he checked Twitter and Facebook.

When he saw that Holly and Dan had held an impromptu concert for gas money and the fandom was shrieking about their compatibility, he set it all aside with a groan. He’d have to apologize to her tomorrow, when he had energy and a full stomach.

*** 

The next morning involved pancakes with chocolate chips, and a lot of fresh almond milk. Holly stuffed her face eagerly while Dan doused his food in syrup, and they filled the van with gas and then got back on the road.

New Mexico was dry and earthen-toned, as if it had been sandblasted to faded reds and browns by an old master potter. They stopped and checked on their bank accounts – Dan paid back his debt to the Excalibur with a sense of great shame and a lot of embarrassment, but Holly didn’t make a remark, using her check to buy them lunch at a lovely lunch at a family owned tacqueria. He lazily watched children run free about his feet, shrieking and laughing, looking him over like an oddity. He supposed he was odd to them – his tallness, his whitness, his jewishness marked him out as strange to the eye, though not unpleasant. They weren’t making fun.

He didn’t need a bunch of six year olds to do that for him anyway – he was happy to tear himself down for free. 

Holly frowned as she tapped out another text, and then sat back with an icy glass in her hand, sucking down a mouthful of sangria. 

“What’s wrong?” Dan asked. 

“It’s Ross. He feels bad about taking the last of the money and he direct deposited money into my checking to make up for it. But now I feel bad because he’s got the baby with him. Something happened with the flight the three of them were on yesterday, and he’s stuck in Minnesota with her. Brian flew ahead.” 

“Ohh,” Dan said. He wanted desperately to avoid being part of the vague conflict still bubbling between the two of them – was it really conflict? It was more like bittersweet sadness, the feeling he got in the back of his throat when he remembered Bushwick, remembered the first love of his life and the way she’d rejected him, how she’d wanted to give up the band life for a real career, a straight nine to five job. The past receded when the words she’d spoken took hold and fear seized him. “Is Brian okay?” He automatically opened his phone, and the last text from him was from an hour ago. _I see you and Holly are having fun together._ Someone had taken pictures, taken video – stuff he’d think about, attend to when he had the space. 

_Hell yeah, babe_ , he replied, and then answered back his sister, his parents, both of whom had gotten a little antsy thanks to his silence. Guilt seemed to the primary emotion dogging this trip. 

“Fine,” she said awkwardly, through prune-frosted lips pinched tightly together. Holly had dressed for the desert in a beautiful, gauzy violet dress, her hair pinned neatly back over the tips of her ears with plain pink barrettes; she had faewild beauty, strangely ethereal yet sturdy, sitting across from his more ordinary form with his most-ripped jeans and his sleeveless grey tank top, hair tied back into a messy ponytail. 

“Sorry, I should’ve just asked you instead of checking. I just don’t want to lose him, y’know?” Well, there was a full on confession he hadn’t planned on making. Dan buried his face in his hands and she poured him a half-cup of sangria. 

“Drink,” she requested, “I’ll drive.” And he did what she asked, without thinking or questioning much.

That night they stopped near the Texas border and found a tiny motel with pink mini haciendas. There was only one left when they arrived, dusty and tired. 

“I’m afraid it’s a double. I hope you don’t mind?” The woman behind the counter was sweet and looked like a mother, smelled like baby powder and marshmallows. “After all, a young couple like yourselves….”

“Oh! We aren’t!” Dan said quickly, as Holly cringed and reached out for the key. Two minutes later he was waiting by the doorway as she showered and changed into a pair of owl pjs, then quickly dove under the covers and let Dan take his own cool shower wash away his cares. 

Holly had turned on the TV; she flicked through channels until she landed on the Wrath of Kahn, which was mimetically memorable enough for Dan to quote along with it under his breath as he tucked a pillow beneath his chin. 

“Are you having fun so far?” Holly asked suddenly. “I’m not boring or anything, am I?”

Dan raised an eyebrow at the question. “Holly, you’ve never been a wet blanket once in your whole life.”

“You haven’t seen me when I play D&D.”

“Yes I have!” He rolled over and looked at her through a curtain of hair. “I happen to be well-versed in the adventures of Strix.” 

“Really? I didn’t think you had time to pay attention.”

“I always want to make time for you,” he said. That was terribly honest, but Dan had nothing to lose. “No matter how weird things get or how big the band is, or how busy I am – you’re always my friend, your feelings about Ross notwithstanding.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, sounding nothing if not a little impressed.

“No, I absolutely mean it. I just….” Dan rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, and outside the hacienda’s window he could smell sweet grass blowing in the wind, and see stars twinkling brightly in the night sky, visible now that they were a million miles away from the smog. Everything was peaceful, but his heart felt like it was going a million miles an hour. “You’re a really special person. Really special. Very special.”

“You’re special too, Dan. But...I guess you don’t need me telling you that.”

She didn’t sound impressed, and he had no idea why he was frustrated by that. “I do. I want all of the Holly compliments ever all of the time. You’re one of the best women I’ve ever met who I’m totally not related to. You’re like, Holly, and I’ll super always adore you.”

“Dan,” she said softly. It was almost a plea. He had no idea, no clue why she was using that tone of voice. 

“Um…I’ll…just let the movie play,” he muttered. Suddenly, she reached across the gap between their beds, brushing the tips of his fingers.

“When I was younger,” she said, “I used to try and cast spells. You know…incantations. Nothing like I do now, but…some kind of wish magic.”

His fingertips teased against hers, moving back and forth lazily. “What did you wish for?”

She tucked a hand underneath her chin. “For a friend. A real friend, not like the people in the crowd I was hanging out with. Someone who’d understand me no matter what.”

He smiled into his arm. “And you never found the right person, huh?”

“No, Dan. It came true.”

The words – heavy with meaning – lingered between them, and Dan let her fingers encircle his big, clumsy ones before drifting away and to sleep.

*** 

They parked under the blazing sun in a lush, foresty area beside the Rio Grande, and watched the hawks circle overhead. Holly thought to herself that if she could sprout wings, if she could join the birds in flight, she would have truly found herself in heaven.

Dan looked up at them and wondered if they would eat from his open palm, tame as a parakeet, if he offered the right bit of sweetness up.

*** 

“Okay, so, the Beatles.”

“Boo!”

Dan wrinkled his nose, chuckling. He’d dumped half a cup of ketchup on his fries and was sawing through his burger while Holly had a huge salad and a cup of dressing sat before her for easy dipping. They were resting, eating, and enjoying the day – it being too hot to even contemplate moving with the noon sun beating down on them. Everything seemed richer and bigger in Texas; the food had forty layers of bacon and cheese on it, and the burgers were about the size of his own enormous hand. 

“Don’t diss the Beatles, babe. You can fight it all you like, but it’s a universal fact - everyone knows about them or has a favorite Beatles song, even those kids who act like they don’t know who they are.”

She smiled. “Babe?”

He sipped his warm half-cup of Pepsi. “Oh! If you don’t like that I’ll stop.”

She took another bite of salad, chewed, swallowed. “Penny Lane.”

“A Day in the Life,” he said. 

“Everyone’s got issues,” she said, and crunched down a cucumber. Just for that he put a couple of dollars in change into the tiny red miniature jukebox on their table and played the entire Sergeant Pepper’s album for her.

And it felt good. It felt comfortable, and right, like sliding his legs into a pair of old jeans. 

It felt like coming home. 

Dan had rarely valued the notion of comfort within a relationship. It wasn’t that he was an excitement junkie – it was that he was that he adored, craved and needed attention. Every girl might be the one. Every girl was beautiful, and every door was open. His utter fear that he might miss out on one thing, that if he closed the door he’d regret it, had often left him paralyzed with indecision, had him running from commitments and live-ins. When you think you’ve been presented with the ‘real thing’, when you say to yourself that you’re going to marry this girl, join lives, and have a family only to be handed a hard, long, arduous break-up is enough to leave a person permanently wary. 

Would he ever stop being bitter about that? He was surprised by the thought – it’d never occurred to him that there was another option aside from BEING bitter about everything. He looked at Holly – Holly who had planned a life of birds and prop crafting and nerdy living with Ross, who had been totally happy with him, totally pleased with him – Holly who had been told out of the blue by the man she’d loved with every inch of her heart that he was gay, in love with another man, in love with a close friend. He didn’t know how she could stand it sometimes. He only knew that she was brave. He would have been devastated.

But Holly had been devastated, hadn’t she? Yet she also had an identity that wasn’t ‘wife’ or even ‘Commander Holly’. She was a swamp witch; she was a crafter; she was a musician, and loved birds more than herself, and was gentle while being so fiery-honest.

She was such a puzzle. He wanted to spend forty years unwrapping all of the layers of her, just to discover the truth.

Jesus, why the hell was he in such a poetic mood?

His further musings died when a skinny, freckled kid with a red baseball cap opened the diner door.

“Hey, whoever’s got the big ol’ truck with the California plates, you’re getting towed for parking in a red!” he said.

“Land’s sake,” grumbled the elderly woman behind the counter, who had so sweetly inquired after their day while serving them endless cups of water and soda. “Is it Emmett again? That jackass is going to ruin my business.”

“Yeah, it’s him. Says he was two inches over the line and there’ll be hell to pay if his CO sees it.”

“Um,” Dan spoke up loudly, “what’s the name on those plates?”

“Uh…” The kid squinted into the gold-white sunlight. “UNICRNW?”

“That’s us,” Dan sighed. He shoved the rest of his fries into his mouth and Holly finished off her water. They left behind a thick tip for the beleaguered diner owner, quickly paid for their meal and raced outside.

Dan and Holly were blasted by a wave of blazing hot sunlight. If Phoenix had felt abnormally hot, and the desert had born little charm beyond its roiling surface temperature, than Texas had its unique, nose-drying heat. Dan slipped his sunglasses on while Holly lowered the brim of her hat – sure enough, there was a skinny, nervous looking guy with salt and pepper hair and a blue policeman’s uniform booting their truck.

“Hey!” Holly yelled, jogging up before he could say a word, “That’s our car!”

“License and registration?” Holly passed her own over, and Dan placed his on the hood of the car before unlocking it to get the registration out. When he handed it over the man scanned over his name with his eyes and the officer stood so stiffly and abruptly to attention that he tweaked his back. “Sorry, miss, but you’re in a no-parking zone. That is, no parking between the hours of noon and five. If you had Texas plates or it was eight at night, I might let you go…”

“We need that car,” she said flatly. “It’s the only way we can get to New Jersey by the end of the week for a very important wedding.” That wasn’t true – they could always get on a plane – but damn it, Dan was right there with her, in the spirit of things, wanting to finish this out and be by her side when they did it.

“The fine’s five hundred, to be remitted immediately,” he said, scratching out the price and his badge number on a slip of paper. Then he suddenly looked up. His blue eyes narrowed and Dan could hear the wheels in his head turn. “Hey. Ain’t you two in that fancy video with the whatchacallit spandex guy with the funny alien song?” 

“Yes. I’m the fancy spandex man,” Dan winced. “Or I was. And I will be again, when the trip ends.”

And then he said to Holly, “and ain’t you the pigeon lady my daughter likes?”

Holly’s social anxiety had flared up thanks to the situation – Dan could see the glazed nervousness right in her eyes. But she forced a smile and thrust out her hand. “That’s me,” she said.

“Well!” he ripped the ticket off of the pad and presented it to Dan. “Since I am in the presence of two genuine celebrities, I guess I can unboot your car and let this go…” he smiled. “For a price.”

“Um….What’s the price?” Dan couldn’t stop his voice from nervously fluctuating with the question.

“Well, you see, my daughter’s school is having a steak fry tonight. If they make goal then her whole cheerleading team’s gonna go to Washington for a national competition.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a black business card decorated with bright red flames that bore the address to a local steak restaurant. “I figure having a couple of real-life celebrities there ought to help out.”

“Well…” Dan began.

“I can run your registration just to see if you’ve got any nationwide-type trouble,” he suggested.

Dan knew just what he’d find – the debt he’d just solved with the Excalibur. “No! That’s uh…really cool! We’ll be there at seven.”

“All right then,” he said. Bending to take the boot off, he soon pulled it away and hefted it into the backseat of his neighboring cruiser. “Don’t you miss it now. Wouldn’t wanna have to disappoint a bunch of fans, would we?”

“Nooo,” Dan said, wide-eyed. His posture didn’t relax until the cop was well on his way.

“Dan,” Holly grumbled, “you could’ve asked before you said yes.”

“He had me up against a wall,” Dan pointed out, grabbing his license and registration. He watched Holly dive into the back seat and rummage around in the back of the car for her suitcase. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to change,” she said. “I don’t want to look grungy.”

“I…uh….” Dan’s ‘dressy’ look wasn’t much different from what he was wearing, give or take a few layers of leather. They’d checked out of the motel they’d stayed in the night before, and he had no idea how he felt about Holly…well, stripping off so close to him.

“You won’t look, right?” she asked, raising one eyebrow. Her bow mouth twitched. 

“No!” he squeaked out. “I wouldn’t dare violate your privacy!”

“Thank you,” she said. 

Dan did turn around and stare at the highway as it sprawled out before him. He didn’t start driving until she clambered over the armrest and back into her seat, wearing a cute pair of shorts and a lacy blouse. Her long, tanned legs glistened in the sunlight, and her evocative, swampy perfume caressed his nose.

He ignored his hard-on and turned the ignition.

*** 

The Squealing Hog was actually a really nice looking steakhouse crafted from a repurposed barn. It loomed imposingly over their heads as Dan and Holly approached, and Dan felt a curious thrill of fear in his stomach as they opened its smoky, pressed glass doors.

“Hi!” a perky server in a simple polo and jeans said, “party of two?”

Dan glanced again at the business card. “Actually, we’re supposed to be appearing at the Sam Houston High fundraiser.”

“Ohhh,” the woman said, turning away from the dining room and pivoting toward two large wooden doors on the opposite side of the lobby. She kicked the door open and Dan and Holly were immediately surprised by the amount of people inside. Teenagers milled around, as well as several fancily-dressed adults. Several people noticed them, and whispering combined with delighted expressions.

She froze for just a second, and Dan rested a hand on her shoulder. He saw the confidence return to her gaze; they approached the officer who’d nearly arrested them earlier, who was among his five kids and his well-dressed wife. 

“We’ll just need you to do two things,” he said. “One’s host the big auction, the other’s eat the Big Moo. Just for the papers, y’understand, and to get people to bet on you.”

“Um…I don’t eat meat, I’m sorry.” 

“Well,” the man said through a grimace of a smile, “You do tonight!”

Dan could see the clear anxiety on her face as the rest of the family ate and they tried to press the flesh, sweeten the pot before the auction. 

Hosting the auction itself was easy enough – Dan knew how to work a crowd, and how to drive money out of the most calcified wallet. They had eight thousand dollars in the funds when they began to run out of items.

“Annnd next up for bid…” Dan stripped off his leather jacket, holding it aloft, “is this! The jacket off of my back! It’s been in a couple of Grumps things, an NSP video, and since Texas is so…steamy…I thought I’d put it up for auction. Starting price is one hundred dollars, is that cool?”

You’d’ve thought he’d have dipped Justin Bieber in gravy and threw him into the crowd as a number of teenage girls flung their arms into the air, trying to outbid each other. 

“And my earrings!” She pulled one out of her ears – she’s handmade them out of amethyst beads, and they caught the light, jingling on their brass fittings.

When all was said and done - and they’d raffled off a trip to the Bahamas – the cheerleader’s trip was officially funded.

The policeman was thrilled, and clapped Dan hard on the back. “Now are y’all ready to saddle up for the Big Moo?”

“Sure,” Dan said, panic in his voice, in his eyes, but then they were being herded toward a banquet table and seated side-by-side, cloaked with red checkered bibs and over-sized cowboy hats.

“I really, really don’t want to eat that steak,” Holly muttered as it approached the table.

“I’ll eat most of it,” he said.

“But your stomach!”

“Between the two of us I’m a little less likely to hork it back up.” 

She looked up into his eyes. “I’ll be with you,” she promised him. “Every single step of the way.”

It seemed that “The Big Moo” took two servers to bring to the table, and they struggled with it. It was about a hundred ounces and was about twice the size of the biggest steak Dan had seen in his life up to that point.

“Now,” said the policeman, “If the two of you can finish this baby off in less than three hours, The Squealing Hog’s gonna double the money we’ve raised AND donate a couple of thousand to the children’s cancer ward at Sam Houston Pediatric. How’s that sound to you?”

Holly gawked at the steak and Dan felt a thrill of pity for her. “Good!” He lied desperately.

“Then on the count of three, y’all have fun digging in!” 

The crowd chanted the countdown.

Dan’s right hand laced with Holly’s left. 

They picked up forks and dug in.

The rest was nothing but a meat tornado.

*** 

Dan would have felt triumphant, hours later, sitting alone with Holly in the bathroom of their hotel. They’d mashed the meat into their gullets, won a plush hotel room for the night, and managed to finish the steak off. Not that this was a particularly pleasant fact of life. 

“Suzy…” Holly cleared her throat while Dan fanned her red cheeks, “Suzy used to say that there’s a kind of tick that can bite you, and when it does you end up allergic to red meat.”

“Wonder if she has any samples back home.”

Holly laughed so hard she choked. As they sat chugging Pepto Bismol and laughing at their fate between stomach gurgles and bouts of nausea. 

He thanked her when she held back his hair as he leaned over the bowl. Nothing like friendship and a heavy bout of puking to deepen an already good friendship.

*** 

Giant malls were a new thing for Ross. He’d been in a few during his travels, and the one big one they had in Sydney, but not one this lavish. He hadn’t exactly grown up in the middle of the wilderness, but Australia was less of a metropolis than a microcosm of different sorts of environments. With a full ten hours to their flight to Jersey, he figured that the baby could use a little exercise to wear down the edges of her excitement.

This mall – the biggest one in America – was a playland for children of all types. Baby was running wild, climbing onto anything she could get underfoot, skidding to a stop to watch a video on an enormous. Ross’ energy was at a high, peaked by the sugary pancakes he’d had that morning. His meds and the syrup were probably duking it out in his bloodstream for supremacy. There was a mental image he’d need to draw soon. Just like Baby he, too, couldn’t quite focus on much – thankfully not a necessity on a day off like this. 

“ROSS!” she called. She was clinging to and squeezing his hand in hers, hopping up and down on her clog-covered feet. “Can I have candy?”

There was a candy store here of course – not just any candy store, but one of those fancy candy emporium things, with big pinwheeling plastic rainbow lollipops drawing people closer and plaster, brightly-painted statues of little kids see-sawing on giant candy bars. The kind with enormous dispensers loaded with every single kind of penny sweet imaginable. Their M&Ms were actually separated by color, glimmering in their plastic containers like tiny gems. 

“You can have a quarter pound,” he said, holding on to her tugging grip. That naturally resulted in her grabbing a plastic baggie and putting one, two, three of each thing that caught her fancy, the whole display ending with him hoisting her toward a container high over her head, carefully upending spades-full of Snickers into the bag. He let her do it twice, and then set her back on her feet and tied up the bag. When she saw a display of novelty sunglasses in neon colors next to the register, she started to whimper.

“You want one?” He realized suddenly why she wanted one. “You want to look like me.”

“LIKE YOU!” she yelled happily. He bought her a pair of neon pink sunglasses just for her kindness, and as they paid for the food, his phone beeped.

When he checked his Twitter app, he was treated to his ex-wife’s Google alert; the sight of her shoveling steak into her mouth with a look of what could only be described as pure horror etched on her face was enough to get him to text her.

 **Are you all right?** he texted quickly.

A few minutes passed and she texted him back a picture. She was in bed, lying on silk sheets with the morning sun flooding in.

**We’re both fine. That wasn’t fun, but we’re alive.**

He shook his head, affection for her still buried in his heart. _As long as you’re both good.”_

A beep. **Dan says hi. We should be there in a few days – in time for the rehearsal dinner. I’ve got so much to tell you.**

A pause and another beep. **And Brian**.

He grinned, sent her back a picture of himself and baby giving thumbs-up outside of the candy shop.

There was one more beep. **Ross, her dress is on backwards.**

Oops, so it was, the tag sticking jauntily out from beneath an unruly nest of curls that he’d recently combed. 

The baby was hopping up and down again, super excited about getting to go to the movies with him, but he dragged her to the men’s room, made sure she went potty, then switched the dress inside out. Never let it be said that Ross O’Donovan was an inattentive stepdad to-be. 

“You know, when I was a little kid,” he informed her, washing up her hands in the sink, “we used to have movies on big things called tapes, and we had to stick them into a noisy machine to watch them.”

The baby’s eyes widened in alarm. “Why?” she asked.

“Because,” he said, “no one had invented computers like the ones we have yet.”

She gaped at him. “Was it a really long time ago?”

Ross let his troll face slip just slightly. “Only just before the dinosaurs died, honey,” he told her lightly. They followed the directional signs to a movie complex that was twice the size of any Ross had yet been confronted with.

“It might take us awhile,” he told her, “but we’ll figure out where the movie theatre is.”

She nodded her little head quite resolutely, and together they moved to find it.

***

It took most of the day to reach the Louisiana border, and by then Dan wanted nothing else but a tall, cool drink. Holly had changed into a sleeveless teeshirt and a pair of tight jeans and boots. She never showed off this much skin but the summer sun nearly demanded it as the swampy heat grew more intense around them.

To Dan this display was a huge distraction. She looked good – when did she look terrible? – but this was somehow different. He’d often thought she was delightful, sweet, attractive, and caring. But this was the very first time he’d ever seen her as sexy. 

Really sexy. The kind of girl who could inspire his first wet dream sort of sexy.

As they waited at a stoplight nearing the heart of _Don’t look at her boobs_ he instructed himself sternly. Then, as she yawned and shifted in her seat, exposing midriff, _Don’t look at her tummy!_

“Dan?”

“What?” he said, just a touch too sharply.

“Would you like to stop and grab a drink?”

It was New Orleans – naturally, there were many bars, and all of them were open far too late in the night.

The one Holly picked enormous and kind of dank with moisture, with big red neon signs on the wall and a loud, friendly clientele watching the Baby Cakes lose another game, and Holly swaggered right up to it and ordered them two fingers of whiskey.

“After that steak yesterday this is all my stomach can handle,” Dan said. 

Holly shrugged, “I’m gonna cut loose, if you don’t mind.”

“Never,” he said, and watched her slug it back like a pro.

Dan eyed his own fingerful with fear. Hard alcohol had never been his friend, and even one little finger of whiskey made the world tilt under his feet. “This is enough,” he yelled, and asked the bartender for a glass of water.

He hadn’t heard Dan, but Holly shouted to fill in the blanks. “Bourbon!” she asked the bartender. “Water for him. Do you guys sell beignets too?”

He shrugged. “I can have Sluggo get them from the place next door.” He pointed to his co-bartender, a tall guy who was appropriately bald and in a mob cap.

“Sluggo,” Holly said, pointing in his retreating direction, “You are totally the man.”

“Oh boy,” Dan remarked through his teeth.

Sluggo returned with the beignets; Dan had two, and Holly replied by shooting bourbon between bits of beignets, moaning orgiastically between every bite. That wasn’t helping his boner at all, and Dan let out a grunt of a noise of frustration as he watched her. Holly stayed oblivious, as he watched the pastries disappear between her lips with a sense of admiration. Heaven knew he’d never be able to pull this off.

When the plate was empty but for a dusting of powdered sugar, she grabbed him by the hand and dragged him onto the dance floor. “Dance with me!” she demanded.

The jukebox was competing with the Baby Cakes for the bar’s attention – it was piping out hot, nasty funk into the room, something that sounded like James Brown to Dan’s ear - but Dan almost had a rhythm going soon enough. Holly was less interested in dancing than she was in shimmying in place, her frank eyes taking him in. 

When Holly slowed it down, stopping him from jutting out his elbows and looping her arms around his neck, rocking slowly in time with the beat, Dan kept his whole frame stock-still, letting her pull his arms in any direction she cared to.

Dan slowed to a stagger, letting Holly drunkenly look up at him, her fingers journeying through his curly hair, a small grin on her face. Her thumbs met at the back of his thick nape, brushing gently, making his skin turn to gooseflesh.

“Holly?” he had to ask her. Dan was no pig –he wasn’t going to touch a girl who wasn’t a hundred percent consenting, and a drunk girl, he well knew, was in no shape to consent to anything at all. He pushed her delicately away.

Her lip curled up, nose wrinkling. “You’re no _fun_ ,” she complained. “this trip has been a shitty nightmare, I’m so hot and I’m so bored and I just want to relax and you’re being all…you. Nice.”

Dan frowned at the challenge in her voice. “What’s wrong with being nice?” he protested. 

She shrugged. “Nothing. I like nice boys. I just feel like being a little bad tonight,” she said.

He shook his head. “Holly, you’re…”

“I’m?” she asked.

“Gonna regret this in the morning,” he said.

She threw her head back and laughed. “Nope,” she said. She danced her way around Dan twice before losing her balance in her boots and splitting them from ankle to calf. 

“Okay, I think it’s time to go back to the hotel,” he said.

“Ugh, Dan,” she groaned. “Why did you turn the room upside down?”

He sighed patiently. “I thought it would sober you up,” he said, just managing to keep the sarcasm from his voice. They slipped out of the bar and once they were clear of the doorway she pushed herself free of his grip. 

“Ugh. What is it with you?” she was looking beyond him, at a bright neon sign just over his head advertising freshly caught fish.

“With me? I’m just trying to help you.”

“With MEN, Dan,” she said, as if he were a total dunce. “GOD, none of you know what you want. Either you want bad girls or you want princesses. You want mommies or whores. You don’t get that women are both, or none, or they’re everything under the freaking rainbow and whittling us down to stereotypes will get no nowhere. You’re just like Ross. Nothing’s ever good enough. Sure, you play sweet and nice and kind, but what do you really want when the day is done? Someone who’ll fluff up your cute little egos. And all of this mess would’ve been out of the way and done if you’d just been honest with yourselves before you said yes.”

Dan’s frantic mind had lost track of the conversation before she’d reached her point. “Did you just call Brian a whore?”

She let out a shout of frustration and staggered her way up the street. She turned around and said, “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

“You think I’m pretty?” he gasped.

She all but booted open the door to their hotel and refused his arm as she staggered upstairs to safety.

But the words haunted him all night, even as she dozed and snored at the opposite side of the room.

**** 

Baby was thoroughly enthralled by the pictures skipping before her dazzled eyes. Ross watched her track it all, her frank astonishment on her open features, her thoughtful exploration of everything as it lay before her.

As he watched her, he wondered about the entertainment that was available to her. Much of it seemed simplistic, poorly formed or intended for children with different personalities. She deserved something spirited and funny, sharp and lively; something that was utterly and completely worthy of the kind of person he hoped she’d be.

Why not create something for active girls like her? 

Why not make a story about a toddler super-heroine who loved science?

The hair on the back of Ross’ head prickled as the idea exploded to life in his brain. His idle fingers reached for his phone. It was rude as hell to draw in the movie theater and he knew this, but his itchy fingers quickly sketched a concept – a girl who looked like her, wearing a crown and a cape, with magic bolts of lightning emanating from her chubby fingers. She could save the world with power, kindness, and physics; her villain would be the evil Dark One, who wished to drag the world back to a time when math and science didn’t exist.

He drew and drew – character sketches that would be fleshed out on his Wacom, of course, but for the moment….

His thoughts were interrupted by the baby’s sudden protest. “You’re not watching the movie!” she said, and kicked at the empty chair in front of them.

“Shh!” he whispered, and turned his eyes toward the screen. Up there, Belle was literally kicking butt. Baby loved every bit of it, was sitting, totally enthralled and watching it happen. 

It was, he supposed, a good thing, to have a formative heroine as soon as you could find one. And if he could help another girl find one – well, that would be the ultimate victory.

 

*** 

_Dan was kissing her._

_His tongue was making silky swipes between her lips, teasing the tip of it, trying to draw her own out. His hands were bunching up the hem of her dress and she could feel heat, warm between her legs and below the waist, hot at her neck, hot at the center of her, pulsing and shifting and taunting at her nerves…. His big hands were parting her thighs, and he was groaning, vibrating her head, her whole head was…_

Holly shocked awake as the car skidded right off the road to the tone of Dan’s cursing. The lovely sweetness of her dream melted into a puddle of gooey nightmare fuel as she blinked, sitting up, desperately trying to clear the clouds from her eyes. 

Dan slapped the steering wheel and reached for his phone. She peeked at him from beneath sticky eyelids as he called for Triple A and then sat back with a groan, letting the engine run and the air conditioner go.

Holly felt a wave of guilt. She’d let herself slack off quite thoroughly, as she’d woken up back in Louisiana with her arms wrapped around Steven Strange’s plaster head. Her hangover had lingered for hours after she woke nauseated and cotton mouthed to an otherwise empty room. Dan had brought her tomato juice and she’d puked so hard she’d given herself a migraine, to his loud guilt. 

“I’ll do all the driving,” he said, shoveling Swedish pancakes into his mouth while she held her nose. But once her stomach had settled she had fallen into a deep, easy sleep, the rocking of the car carrying her away and into another world.

One, apparently, where she and Dan liked to do some heavy duty making out.

She squeezed her thighs together as the memory chased a wave of pleasure down her spine. She didn’t want to question why she was having such feelings – the pursuit of pleasure had thoroughly burned her, and there was no time for sweetness when he was sitting right beside her waiting for a tow. Still. Dan saw her stir and gave her a smile.

“I think I hit something sharp back there,” he said. “Looks like the tire’s flat.”

Holly groaned and rubbed her eyes. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere outside of Nashville,” he said. 

“I’ve been out that long?”

“Yep,” he smiled. “You were just a little bit out of it,” he said.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to just…go sideways on you,” she said. 

“You wanted to loosen up,” he reminded her. “And so you did.”

“I just felt like the road’s been beating me up.” Or, to be more accurate, her weird feelings for him were. 

He shook his head. “You were kinda bitter about Ross last night,” he confessed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

They were cut off by a nice-looking elderly man in blue coveralls peering into the car. “Y’all call for a tow?” he asked, scratching his brow.

“Yep,” Dan said.

“Well, all right,” he said. “You’re in White Bluffs now – just a stone’s throw from Nashville. If you like,” he added, “you can take a cab into town, and my cousin Shep’ll put you up at the Blue Bell ’til I get your vehicle fixed.”

“Well?” Dan asked Holly. They were planning on stopping in Nashville anyway, and his eyes were basically pleading with her. 

“Okay,” she said. He grabbed and hugged her, and she let out a soft, surprised gasp, cupping the back of his head with her small hands, letting the emotion seep into her weary skin.

They parted to the screeching of metal, and the sensation of the SUV tipping toward the sky.

**** 

The Blue Bell was a tiny, tiny hotel that looked like a simple family home, complete with gingerbread trim. Their room was darling and looked like something her grandmother would drool over in those A Touch of Class catalogs.

But it had only one bed.

Holly stared at the thing as if it were a mouse wiggling in a trap. She would need to crawl between its sheets, of course. But not yet. 

Dan was in the bathroom, and she could hear him talking to Brent, then to Brian, explaining their plans for the rest of the day. She had texted Suzy, and smiled to get the answer she got.

_Do you want me to kick him in the butt?_

Maybe she’d spilled a couple of feelings to her friend. Well, more than a couple. 

**If you did, he’d go right over the moon,** she said. **And I’d be very, very mad to see him go.**

A ding. _You have such a crush,_ Suzy said. 

**I don’t know what I have** Holly admitted. **I totally embarrassed myself back in Louisiana. I can’t explain myself to him or anyone right now. I feel like I’m all over the place.**

 _Then don’t try. Dan never thinks badly of anyone,_ said Suzy.

Proving Suzy’s point, a loud clatter from the bathroom door drew her eyes from the phone. “Hey Holly,” Dan yelled, “Brian pulled some strings and called around downtown for us – how do you feel about Loretta Lynn?”

“I like her all right. Why?”

“Because she’s playing at the Ryman tonight, and I scored us tickets!”

Holly grinned. That was Dan to a pure tee – looking out for her, wanting her to be happy. “Sure,” she said.

“Cool,” he said. He peeked out of the bathroom door and eyeballed the bed. The very lacy, very blue bed. 

“Wanna get dinner while we’re gone?” he said quickly.

“Absolutely,” she said, and grabbed her purse.

** 

Downtown Nashville was beautiful, steely, and seemingly open-faced, mixing old and new together in a mélange of flashing neon. There seemed to be music everywhere – people playing it, busking it on street corners, piping it out of white call boxes attached to the fronts of shops – you could walk three miles and be exposed to Waylon, Johnny, Elvis and Dolly in less than a second. Dan was almost glowing, clearly in his element, striding confidently with his head up, as comfortable as Holly felt with a pigeon snuggled up in her palm. They wandered into a shop and bought boots to replace the ones she’d ripped the night before – Dan’s first pair, laced through with bright blue stars. Holly’s had red and blue birds dancing among laced curlicues, and she wore them right out of the shop. 

They found a vegetarian place and settled down to eat, and all the while Dan eyeballed her over their food. 

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

He shook his head. “About how Elvis and Johnny Cash are, like, total legends. Everyone knows their name here and I’m…” he shrugged. “Well, no one’s recognized me yet, and I played a sold-out show here a couple of months ago.”

She brushed her fingertips against his as she reached for a garlic and parmesan-laden breadstick. “I think being recognized by that sheriff is enough of a jolt on the fame scale for me.”

The corner of Dan’s mouth turned up. “I don’t know why I’m thinking, it’s just…” he shrugged. “Do you ever feel – even though you have the birds, and work, and so much going on all the time – do you ever feel like you’re hungry for something?”

She stopped chewing. The words settled in the back of her mind and seemed to sprout big, terrible, flapping wings in her stomach. 

“Not for love,” he plunged on, awkward and quick. “Love never lasts, at least not for devilishly handsome men like me.” She sighed at his silliness and he quickly added, “I mean, do you feel like you’ve been looking all your life for something and there’s just….” He patted his chest. “There’s something there that should be and it’s not?”

“Sometimes,” she hedged. “Not in a scary way, or a wrong way – just in a this-is-happening-and-I-don’t-know-why way.” She watched him. “You’re not happy.”

He shrugged. “Denis Leary used to say that happiness lasts for two seconds and that’s just how life is. You have the orgasm, you eat the cookie, and life goes on.”

“Who?”

He shook his head in dismay. “We’re watching No Cure for Cancer when we get home.”

“But – here’s the big question - why don’t you feel like it lasts for you?”

“Because I want everything. Everything and nothing, all at the same time,” he admitted. “When I’m home I want to be working, and when I’m working I want to be onstage. And when I’m onstage, that’s the only place where everything fits. And it feels so weird, so selfish. I don’t have a right to be so greedy and yet I am. I have the career I always wanted, so many cool friends, a big house that’s all mine. People actually listen when I play music. But…but it’s not enough. Somehow, it’s not enough.”

“Maybe you do need love,” she suggested. “Maybe what you’re feeling is loneliness.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I feel it too, sometimes. Even when I’m in a big crowd. And half the time I end up worrying that everyone hates me.”

“But why would I feel lonely? I’ve got you, and Brian, and my girls in New Zealand, and most of Brooklyn has my back. But…every time I fall in love, I just freeze up. I freeze up and I run like hell. And then I go home to an empty bed and I hate that too.” His laugh was soft, self-depreciating. “Maybe I wasn’t meant to be in love at all. Lots of cool people stay single, have lots of sex and die everyone’s favorite uncle,” he said.

“I hate it when you say that,” she said vehemently. “’Romantic love comes and goes,’” she quoted. “When it either leaves you or you walk away from it.”

“Why?” he wondered.

“Because I think it’s crap,” she said suddenly. “Your parents have been married for years; your sister, too. Look at Arin and Suzy.”

“Look at you and Ross.” The second he said it, regret bloomed on his features. “That was massively dickish of me. I’m so sorry.”

“But that’s the thing, Dan. Just because Ross and I couldn’t work it out doesn’t mean that for some people romantic love lasts forever. Maybe he was meant to be with Brian and I was meant to be with somebody else. And maybe you were meant to be with someone else, too.”

He watched her eyes for a minute before biting his lip and staring at his plate. But she wouldn’t let him get away with it, pushed his chin up, made him look her in the eyes. 

“Maybe you were meant to be with someone, Dan. Did you ever think of that?”

Silently, he stared back at her, trying to force a smile. But the sadness in his eyes was evident. 

“Can I have more ketchup, please?”

His voice was quavering. 

If he couldn’t face the truth then she couldn’t drag him to it. So, what could Holly do but pass the ketchup, watch him drown his fries, and continue to eat her own meal?

*** 

Side by side in the semi-darkness, it was easier to hold each other’s hands, the thorns hidden in the underbrush buried beneath layers of beauty. Loretta was in fine form, holding sway over them all that enchanted night. Swaying in the spotlight, with a four piece band and an audience filled with both locals and tourists, mega-fans and neophytes, she commanded the stage in a quiet and captivating way that left them silently spellbound.

As time passed, his hand drifted toward hers. By the time the concert was near an end he was holding on tight, bouncing along to Fist City and Coal Miner’s Daughter. By the end of the set, Loretta was standing alone onstage glimmering, bandless, nakedly exposed, singing to the highest rafter, 

_I've seen him as he awakens in the morning_  
He reaches out his hand and without a word  
As his fingers softly fall upon my face  
He lights the flame of desire and makes me want him.

Holly looked over and met his staring eyes. His other hand cupped her chin and she scooted toward him.

Without thinking – on pure impulse – their lips met. It was like leaning close to a fire, like drinking deep from a cup of brandy. Sparks danced through her and when they parted his eyes were wide, curious – amazed.

Then the crowd roared and broke the spell.

*** 

They didn’t talk about it. Not in the Uber back to the motel, and not when they came back to their room. She took a short shower while he played with his phone, and let him have most of the hot water. Holly plunged the room into darkness the moment she reached the bed and stared at the wall as he came in and flicked the lights off. Thunder began to roll in the distance as he made careful space between them, with his heat radiating through the space, wrapping around her like a second blanket.

It was raining outside when she closed her eyes – as if the sky itself was crying at her failure to to reach him.

 

*** 

Ross arrived exhilarated in New Jersey, with Baby tucked against his chest like a chunky football. Brian – who had been peppering him with texts since he’d told him they were on the last leg of the trip - stood at the threshold of the gate, his piercing eyes going soft at the sight of his daughter.

She squirmed out of Ross’ grip at the sight of him, both of her arms extended, running as quickly as her tiny legs could carry her. “Daddy!” she yelled.

Brian squatted and intercepted her run, grabbing her up and tossing her into the air. There was squealing, there was joy. Ross managed a smile, even though he was bone tired. Brian pulled him close, and gently kissed his lips. 

“How’s your sister?” Ross asked.

“Well,” Brian said. “How was the flight?”

“I had six bags of unsalted peanuts,” Ross said.

“Ahh,” Brian said, “so it went well.”

Ross smiled, kissed his cheek contentedly. It was fabulous just to be with him again. “I had to check the suitcase,” he explained. “It should be coming back around in a few minutes. I’ve got something amazing to show you.”

“Can’t wait to see it,” said Brian. Then he added, to baby, “mommy’s waiting for you.”

The baby shrieked in delight. Brian added aside, quietly, “and so is _Armand_.

Now Ross knew why Brian was so tense. He grimaced and Brian grimaced right back. 

They’d deal with whatever problems he was going to present to them whenever Ross’ bags came back around.

*** 

_Holly was kissing him._

_Kissing him gently, kittenishly, playfully, in a way that was utterly captivating. Dan’s hands were exploring her breasts, and they were soft, small, delicate in his palms. He kneaded them until she arched her back and cried out into his mouth. Each nipple got a quick tweak and she shuddered, pecking and then attacking him with her tongue. Her pretty lips parted, slick and pale, and her eyes were pale green and clouded with lust when they opened._

_Fuck. He ground himself clumsily into her. Even through his jeans and her panties he could feel her – she was wet, so wet, and he was so -_

Something wet was dripping onto Dan’s crotch. Cold, regular and steadily. His eyes flew open and flew up and – yep, that was as flood of rain pouring onto him.

“Shit!” he squirmed around, got out of bed, found a thick towel and laid it on the bed. He wanted to avoid paying damages on the bed and sleep the night – he could live with musty sheets and blankets for a few hours.

He glanced at Holly, but she was out cold, her eyes sealed tightly shut against the storm raging around them. 

And, he realized – utterly bemused – the one raging between his legs.

Dan tried to will it down. To think of sweet, innocent things. But above the scent of dampness he could smell Holly – the sweet, swampy scent of her perfume, like a thousand blooming trees. Her pale, soft skin barely revealed by the loose collar of her pajamas. The bow of her mouth, slack with sleep. 

But every single thought just made him feel the sliding, frantic heat of arousal, thrumming in his body, running in his blood.

He slipped to the bathroom, flicked on the light and tugged his sweatpants down. His cock was as obstinate as it always was, firm, quivering and pointing straight up.

The powdery pink prettiness of the room didn’t suggest eroticism, and he worried about his knees going to Jell-O and causing a disaster, but Dan couldn’t help himself – he turned on the water, dampened his fingers and took his cock in hand, eyes drifting closed. 

On the pale pink lids he could see a thousand beautiful faces, a thousand filthy acts, but the ones that made him throb the hardest involved Holly. He could still taste her lipgloss from this evening’s kiss; could still feel her tiny, slim body pressed against his shoulder. God, all he wanted to do was touch her, taste her, feel her hands on his form. 

Dan’s hand moved more rapidly, with more desperation. The images grew lewd; he could feel the back of her throat against the tip of his dick, and he could well imagine what the tip of her sweet pink tongue would feel like dancing over the head of his cock.

“Fuck, Holly,” he muttered, pulling his shirt up, teasing his own nipples. His pulse began to race, the pleasure began to deepen…

Then the door swung open. “Dan, did you just…” 

“Woah!” he yelled, desperately trying to cover his cock. Holly squawked and hid her eyes and Dan’s wild flailing resulted in him pressing himself hard against the counter.

Minutes passed as Dan’s heart beat frantically in his chest. When he looked up, Holly was peeking at him through her fingertips.

“I didn’t know…” she began.

“I didn’t think you…” he started to say. 

They stared at each other, brown eyes drilling into green ones, beyond words, beyond even the hope of rational thought. She took two steps toward him and pressed herself quietly into his back.

A hand came around his hip, tips of fingers gingerly teasing over the soft fluffy hair leading toward his groin. Dan sucked in a breath, groaning softly – soon Holly had him in her fist, and she began to work him over tenderly, far more gently than he’d ever touched himself. 

“You’re so big,” she muttered, sounding tranced, her eyes heavily lidded, and oh, her hand was so small, so soft, a bit more fleshy than his own. Dan could feel the steady beat of her heart against the small of his back, and he moaned and pressed his hands palms-down on the counter, eyes mashed closed and his mouth hanging open. Her thumb was teasing that sensitive spot just under the head and oh God it felt so good, and his knees were ready to buckle from the pleasure when she pressed herself into his back, trapping him between her hand and the counter, her wet small mouth pressing small kisses to the small of his back.

He heard material shifting away behind him; when he looked up, Holly was topless, her small breasts now bare, then pressed into the bare flesh of his back. The skin to skin contact made him shiver, and his hips began to work in rhythm with her fist.

“You’re so beautiful when you look like this. I didn’t think…even in my dreams you didn’t look so beautiful. And you’re so warm…” She squeezed him then and Dan let out a desperate whine, his palms slapping the counter. “And hard, and soft…You’re so…” She had run out of words and settled for clinging to his back like a vine. 

The revelation pierced Dan’s sex-fogged brain – she’d dreamed of him too, had had fantasies of her own - for just a second, but then she let go of his cock and he cried out – may have actually said something like ‘come back’ but couldn’t make the words work. One of her hands thrust forth to clumsily turn the water off, and then her tiny hands were manipulating his hips and turning him toward her bare breasts, aiming him toward her bare belly. She looked up into his eyes, and her clear, luminous gaze was enough to make Dan’s belly seize with desire.

Her smile was soft, almost fascinated. “I want to make you come so much. Do you want that? Do you need it?”

Dan’s tongue was too thick to make words. He nodded eagerly at the question though, trying to communicate without the power of language how much he needed this, how much he wanted it. 

“Come on me,” she encouraged. “Come on me, then, I want to watch you come so hard you see stars.”

She took him back into her palm, started stroking rhythmically, building the heat, sending thrills coursing through his form, until he cried out and groaned her name. His thighs trembled when his cock throbbed and jerked in her grip, spilling white heat over her bare belly, her breasts, up to the underside of her chin. Almost tilting forward and then backward into her face, he felt her steady him, until he could get back his bearings.

Buried in pleasure, his whole body throbbing from it, Dan only noticed the look of amazement in Holly’s eyes when she took a step back from him. She locked her gaze to his but he could see her hands moving, could see her rubbing his come into her breasts, her belly, as if it were a type of rare exotic lotion. 

Dan’s jaw had dropped wide open at this point, and through sex-glazed eyes he watched her move. His dick hadn’t even gone down, and it twitched up to slap his belly at the sight of her. It was such a fucking primal moment. He wanted to grab her and hold her against him, to plunge his mouth between her legs, to taste her on his tongue and drown in her sex; to fucking drive his cock into her, to make her feel what he’d just felt so powerfully and thoroughly himself.

“Holly?” his voice was a trembling question, thick and soft and lazy on the back of his tongue. He still felt thrilling shocks running through his body, still felt curls of heat throbbing in his lower belly. He wanted her again. He needed her again, now more than ever before.

But she didn’t move toward him. Instead, her gamin face took on a look of fright. And then Holly took a slow step back.

Then she turned and ran back into the bedroom, leaving Dan alone with his pajamas around his ankles and a slick, throbbing cock.

** 

Holly threw herself belly-down onto the bed. She raked hands through her hair, embarrassment weighing her down. What had she done?

Why had she acted in such a forward manner, without even a second of thought? This was so unlike her, so incredibly unlike her, that Holly was almost experiencing everything from a distance, as if she’d stepped out of her own skin and was observing everything through a long distance lens. 

Holly was frank, she could be forward but – just walking into the bathroom and giving Dan a handy? Out of nowhere? Because he was handsome and because he was so clearly hungry and because she’d been deprived of touch for so long that she couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be touched?

It wasn’t much of an excuse, was it? Did he hate her now, for walking away? Did he think she was a slut? Did he expect her to put out?

Didn’t she WANT to put out now? Did she not want him to touch her? Her sex throbbed around nothingness. Yes, she definitely wanted that, needed to know what his warm hands would feel like on her flesh. But what would he think of her now? Would he make love to her, knowing how forward she could be? Didn’t forward women make him cold and distant, turn his heart away from the possibility of love?

The overhead light flickered on, and as it did she realized how wet the bed was; the roof had started leaking sometime in the night. Great. The last thing she wanted to do was confront the kindly, elderly inn owner and tell her that her roof was probably fucked up…

“Holly?”

Dan had pulled his pants back up, and was watching her with new eyes, with a different sort of curiosity that she’d never seen before in him. He tilted his head and watched her, his eyes wide, his gaze curious. 

Embarrassed, she sat up, crossed an arm over her breasts. 

“I can’t believe you did that,” he said, his voice dreamy and just a hair lighter than his emotions, just a bit like rising steam. There was no accusation in his voice – just soft, dream admiration.

Her stomach and chest unknotted in a rush, and she laughed at herself, at the absurdity of her feelings and the emotion singing between them., “I can’t believe I did it either.” Holly laughed. 

Dan smiled at her awkwardly. He leaned against the doorframe, canted his hips, watched her. “I…thank you,” he said sincerely. “Thank you for…that. It was rad. You rocked my shit to like, Pluto.”

Holly chuckled. “You’re welcome.”

“I’d be honored to return the favor.”

Holly blinked. “Really?”

“I mean, only if you’re totally cool with it. I don’t force people but…God, I want to know what you feel like.”

Holly flushed. Lust warred with practicality. God, did she dare? Did either of them have the guts to do this? 

She spread her palms out upon the dry part of the bed and slowly uncrossed her legs.

Dan was on his knees and between them like a shot, his lips pressed to hers, eagerly cupping her head in his big hands, holding her steady and kissing her with eager, wild, frantic desperation. This was nothing like the way he’d kissed her in the Ryman. That had been all sweet, tentative gestures that had opened up her scarred heart like a flower; this was more dangerous, more deadly, something that caused that scarred heart to throb. She tucked her fingers into his thick hair and pulled with all her might, and he bellowed into her mouth, making her teeth rattle.

His hands shook as they slipped down her sides, caressing her breasts, thumbing over the nipple, squeezing and stroking the nipples with his big thumbs. Lightning flashed through Holly; she cried out and tried to envelope him with her legs as his mouth slid lower, to her neck, digging his teeth lightly in as he began to flick them back and forth in concert. His rhythm was excellent. Of course it was.

Kissing along her neck, down her shoulders and along the planes of her collarbone, Dan peered up at her, burying his face between her breasts and giving a happy, gusty sigh. The nipples were rosy, wrinkled and throbbing for his lips by the time she felt his face tickle the rise of one. She heaved up against him, hissing when a warm, wet tongue poked at the turgid tip of her flesh.

They met, eye to eye as he burrowed in and sucked at her flesh, leaving pale pink marks behind.

“You, my darling,” he declared suddenly, “are completely luscious.”

Holly chuckled at this turn of phrase; she’d never quite seen herself that way, as a confection meant to be eaten, something to be savored, tasted and touched. “I’m not a fancy mousse…Dan!” she gasped when he nibbled gently at her right nipple, then moved to suck on the left.

“You’re a fancy cake. Or a cheesecake or….I can’t shut up. God, you’re so super hot and lovely and I want to hide my face in you and I want to kiss and kiss and kiss…” Then he was suckling on her nipple and she was arching her back, drumming her heels into his flat ass and drawing long grunts from him.

She was being nudged backward, and Dan’s mouth was still sucking her nipple as she shimmied back onto the bed, avoiding the wet spot the leak had made.

Dan rubbed his face against her skin, dotting her with kisses anywhere he could reach, anyplace he could find room to touch her. He was hard against her calf, throbbing slightly, gently, and every little gentle touch he bestowed upon them jolted Holly, making her ache, making her wetter, and forcing her to grind herself into his soft belly. 

Dan’s face was buried in her belly, just below her navel. “Fuck, I can smell how turned on you are.”

“Oh!” Holly tried to squash her knees together on either side of his head. “Is that bad?”

“So fucking beautiful,” he grunted, and then his stubbly face was scratching its way downward. He pushed her pajama pants down and cupped a palm over her and god, she was wetter than the rain, soft and fat and heavy in his palm, like a peach overripe with juice and desire. Then his tongue flicked curiously over her and Holly kicked toward the ceiling and her arms fell back, over her head, exposing herself. “You taste like heaven. Why does this feel so good?”

 _Because you’re as in love with me as I am with you_ , she thought to herself, the realization as thunderous as the strike echoing about them. Any further though on the topic died away when he tugged at a lock of pubic hair with his teeth. She spread her legs wide apart, her toes finding the edge of the bed, and fought to keep her eyes wide open.

His middle finger teased along the parting of her sex, gathering wetness, easing his pathway. He grunted softly into her neck and slid his finger between the silky lips of her labia. When they were wet enough he slipped one gently inside of her and Holly cried out – it was all she could do, rake her nails through his hair, try not to lose her mind and let him touch her. His lips surrounded her clit and his tongue brushed over it very gently. Her thighs jolted and she pushed him away – it was a bit much, a bit too sensitive and intense.

“Okay,” he whispered, pulling back, shaking his hair back over his shoulders. “Shh…how about this way?”

His fingers gently rocked back and forth inside of her, and his eyes watched hers with loving interest. Holly bit back a shriek of pleasure; his fingers were longer than hers, longer than her favorite toy, and they were brushing something sensitive.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, resting his fuzzy chin against her thigh. He watched her with amazement in his eyes, as if she were newborn by his careful touch, as if he were weaving magic with his gentleness. 

“What is that?” she panted, licking her lips.

“G-spot,” he said. “Like, that’s incredible, you know. Plenty of girls don’t have sensitive ones. Some girls can’t even feel it when someone…” he began to rock his fingers again, pressing deliberately upward against the bundle of nerves, which made her thighs dance and her voice keen into a breathless sob. “…does that,” he smiled. “Do you really like it? Do you want me to stop?”

She shook her head, pink hair ringing her face like a halo. “Please don’t, please don’t,” she sang for him, her own fingers squeezing at her soft breasts. 

“Oh baby, fuck,” he growled. “This is so hot…”

“So are you,” she admitted in a small voice, and Dan’s smile went wide, brilliant, his teeth gleaming.

“Thank you,” he said sweetly, and bent his head to brush his tongue gently about her clit.

Holly’s knees smacked into the sides of Dan’s head, wavering until one of them took her knee firmly in grip. She whined every time he licked at her and fell back gasping when he moved his fingers in perfect concert. She held on to him by his hair and he kept carefully away from direct contact, building up the fire smoldering in her gently, with all due reverence and all due respect to her wants. 

Everything in her seemed to tighten and coalesce toward the center of her; everything seemed to be building and ratcheting the pleasure up to almost unendurable heights. She grabbed for the hand holding her knee, and his long fingers wrapped around her, gently flexing.

He looked up, and in the moonlight she saw him – the width of his nose, his enormous eyes, and the handsome shape of his mouth, which shimmered with her arousal. “It’s okay, Holly,” he whispered. “C’mon, let go for me.”

The request was enough to release the last of her inhibitions, the last bit of her that lived in fear of him seeing her as foolish or disgusting. He lowered his head and it was all rapid licks and firm inward strokes; all pressure against her g-spot. The tension climbed and climbed, and her back arched, her hand yanked at his hair and her nipples stiffened once more and thrummed – from the soles of her feet to her ass to her clit to the depths of her, everything tensed and began to spark pleasure. Holly’s eyes rolled backward and she let out a cry of joy.

She came and lost herself and her grip utterly, a long, hard throb of pleasure, her mind going utterly and wholly blank with the ecstasy of it. Dan kept riding it out, kept stroking and licking her until she shouted for him to stop.

When she opened them again and focused at him through a veil of happiness, he was kneeling between her legs on the mattress, a painfully obvious hard-on straining his fly.

Some other man would have taken advantage of her discombobulated state. But this was Dan and rapine never entered into his mind. “I think I have to go back to the bathroom again,” he said, through gritted teeth. 

Holly shook her head, pulling down the hem of his sweatpants. Somehow, his dick looked twenty times more intimidating at this angle. 

“Fuck…condom?” he grunted out. “Got one in my…wallet…what the fuck? Oh man, do that thing with your hand again?”

Holly twisted her wrist, running a slick circle around the head of Dan’s cock. He let out a whine and his knees buckled. “You don’t need a condom. It’s been years since I’ve been with anyone but Ross, and I’m on the pill. You?”

“I’ve never done it without one,” he said. “Holly, are you sure?”

She nodded. Gently, she tugged him down and over her, and reached down to position him.

Dan’s creamy skin prickled with gooseflesh at that first tentative touch. He let out a breathless quiet little sigh when they finally met this way, flesh to flesh, and she brushed him against the tingling center of her body. “Fuck you’re so wet. That’s so…God, I’m going to lose it before I get four inches deep,” he muttered.

“I don’t mind,” she said sweetly. “I’m still a little shivery from the first one,” she admitted. 

He wriggled a hand under her behind – just one spanned her entire behind. She wriggled herself up onto his thighs and hooked her ankles behind his knees. Tenderness bloomed in her heart, and it shined right back at her in the richness of his eyes.

Neither of them moved to pull him into her, yet he slipped on slickness, burying himself by increments and breathless gasps and pleading, needy eyes.

Then they were touching from groin to belly, her thighs cradling his hips, their bodies fully coupled. His sigh was filled with relief, delight, satisfaction, promise.

She opened her eyes again. Dan’s eyes were half-closed, but he was scanning her features, worry in his eyes – clearly looking to see if he was hurting her in some way that could be helped. She cupped his cheek and they kissed, pressed so close, each inhaling the warm breath of the other.

She rocked up into him. “Please, Dan?”

His sigh was quite nearly a laugh. “You don’t have to beg, sweetness.” He buried his face in the side of her neck and pulled out. They could feel everything, every sensitive little bit and inch of flesh connecting and caressing. Slowly, he pushed back inside. Holly followed his will until she couldn’t take another second, until she pushed him over and startled a small cry from Dan’s mouth, pinning him down with her short legs, her stubby strength, and riding him slickly, desperately, until she slipped a hand down between her legs and rubbed herself to a hot, desperate orgasm.

Even then it wasn’t enough, and he levered himself up onto an elbow, pasted his lips to hers, cried out into her mouth. The kiss was desperate, a joust, and she was fists-deep in his hair when Dan parted their mouths to gasp in more oxygen, sipping it between further kisses. “Oh God, you feel so good. I can’t….”

She bit down on his earlobe, groaning, beyond words. _Come_ her body demanded. And he rolled her over, the quick, sharp thrusts of his hips causing his eyes to widen and his jaw to drop, his whole body slipping and falling forth onto her prone body. He was red from nose to chest, and deep inside of her he was thickening, throbbing.

“Come for me,” she whispered into his ear. “Come in me.”

Dan’s head fell back on an extended moan, and his hips hammered down into hers as she thrust desperately up into him. At the last moment he went rigid as a board and sunk against her, throbbing regularly, filling her with a familiar and yet alien heat.

Holly’s hands ran over his long body, over his pallid curves, his long, pale planes. She felt smugly satisfied; she felt new and sweet, as if her heart was wrapped around him. She felt like an angel and yet primal as a cavewoman. 

Dan raised his head and looked up at her, grinning, panting, his cheeks bright red. 

They kissed and rocked, refusing to part, refusing to let go. The steam of the room and the steam of loving had sealed their connection, and when Holly could no longer stand the heat, she shimmied out from under his skinny body and ran, whooping and shrieking, out the front door of the motel room and into the downpour to cool off.

Dan was right behind her, caught up in the moment of wildness, laughing at their mutually shared foolishness. By the time he’d caught up with her they’d tripped and rolled into the grassy field beside the motel, hidden from prying eyes. 

They fell, shrieking with laughter, into the rainy high grass and rolled against the downpour, letting each other feel the heat and wetness of the air, of their lover’s body. 

“Why did you do that?” Dan asked.

“I don’t know!” Holly admitted. “I just felt so wild, you know? Like I had to express it all somehow.”

He kissed her again, curling his long body protectively about her. Some minutes later, Dan scooped her up and carried her back to the room and they made love on the floor, wet from rain, and wet with the desire of lust.

*** 

“…So then I said, ‘if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it!’” Armand’s head fell back as he laughed, flashing rows of bright white Chicklet-sized teeth. 

Ross faked a laugh, but Brian’s expression was flat. “Incredibly clever. But then I suppose those are the wages of parenting small children, isn’t it. It sucks all of the wit out of your brain.”

Armand actually gave Brian finger guns. “There’s my man! You’re always on top of it, dude!”

Brian sucked on his jack and Coke, and Ross was immediately distracted from the obvious tension in his body while Rachel came dancing into the room with the baby. In spite of all of the tension that lay between them, Ross couldn’t help but feel a bit of affection for her. She was a funny, nice woman – and her daughter adored her utterly.

“ROSS!” shouted the baby, plowing into his legs, “look at the bracelets!” She held up a bead-spangled chain that was bright green and pink, and Ross chuckled at the sight of it. 

“Good work! Gimmie a high five!” She did, her tiny hand smacking soundly against the center of his. She ran back to her father and climbed onto his lap, And Brian ooed over her accomplishment.

“So, when do the gang get in?” she asked.

“Suzy and Arin are flying in tomorrow morning, and Dan and Holly should be here in a couple of days,” he said. When last his ex-wife had Tweeted, she and Dan were somewhere in the Smoky Mountains. That was just under two days from here; they’d been traveling for four. You really can cross America in a week, he realized, and suddenly remembered a time when it had seemed inexhaustibly vast to him.

“Staying with Brian’s sister?” she asked.

“I think Arin’s got hotels lined up. Brian and me are booking it up over there though,” he said quickly.

Brian nodded to confirm it. “We’re having fun,” he said. And fun was generally what it felt like, even though they were so busy attending to last minute details that Ross felt like his brain was being sieved through his nose eighty percent of the time.

“I’m glad,” she said, and sipped her wine, leaning into Armand’s brawny shoulder.

“You should totes come up with us to the Catskills this winter,” he said. “We’re gonna ski after I get back from Egypt.”

“I’m allergic to snow,” Brian said.

“That must be a new development,” said Rachel.

Ross winced as Brian’s jaw made an alarming cracking sound. Then Ross gently plucked baby from Brian’s grip and delivered her back to Rachel. “Soulmate, would you like to speak to me in the kitchen?”

“All right,” Brian grumbled. “We do need more queso.” 

When they were alone, Ross went about melting cheese, and as the microwave ran he drew Brian close. “Okay, I can tell that you’re ticked off. What’s wrong?” he asked. 

“Nothing you can solve,” he said glumly. 

“Maybe I can help?”

Brian sighed. “My wife married a Bugle Boy model with the heart of a child and the mind of a mid-level archeologist. I’m…a bit jealous.”

“Oh,” Ross said. Then he wrapped an arm around Brian’s waist and said quite firmly, “you know that you’re the hottest guy on the planet, don’t you?”

Brian snorted. “Hardly,” he said.

Ross kissed his earlobe, slipped his lips down the side of his neck. “That’s it, man. Now I’m going to prove it.”

“Ross, we’re four feet from my child and ex-wife. The last thing I want to deal with is them walking in on the two of us while you blow me.”

Ross grinned and fingered open Brian’s fly. Flicking his own buttons, he produced two soft dicks, then spat into his palm and pressed their cocks together to stroke them.

Brian sighed, almost rolling his eyes at Ross’ stubbornness. “You’re going to get us in so much fucking trouble.”

Ross kissed his stubbly face, rubbing a cheek, grinning up at him. “You love trouble. That’s why you’re with me.”

“Fair…point oh my God,” he muttered, humping through Ross’ gripping hand. They were both rock hard, and Ross kept playing with him, kept up the steam, letting his own passion carry him away.

Soon Brian was gritting his teeth, groaning softly like a dying man. “Shit…paper towels?”

Ross gave him a dazed, happy smile. “Damn. Already?”

“Do you want…fuck!...me to have stamina?” he blurted out.

“Good point,” Ross said, groping for the paper towel dispenser. Just as the microwave started beeping Brian came with a muffled cry, and Ross followed suit, smearing come all over the wadded up towel lodged between them.

He kissed Brian’s face as the older man sighed, shoving his dick back through his fly and turning toward the microwave. “Thank you,” he said, “for not traumatizing my daughter. And for the orgasm, obviously.”

Ross shrugged, following suit, tossing out the wad of paper towels and washing his hand. “Do you doubt that you’re the sexiest man alive,” Ross asked, “or am I gonna have to find that jump rope I saw hanging up in the closet, tie you to the bed and make it even more clear?”

Brian squinted thoughtfully. “Is that a promise? I do have a few new nose hairs I could complain about…”

“Pain in the ass,” mumbled Ross.

Brian grinned. “You wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said, and started pouring chips into a ceramic bowl decorated with tiny cacti.

 

***

North Carolina was green and mild, sweet somehow after days of humidity and desert heat. They had escaped from Tennessee with apologies, and the woman in charge had given them a discount for the room, to Dan’s intense guilt. Holly assuaged it by suggesting they anonymously donate to the town’s funds, which he did, seemingly happy with the choice.

They passed northward, until their grumbling stomachs forced them to find an open restaurant. There were barbeque stands everywhere, and they found a nice one that came highly recommended on Yelp. Holly had fried catfish and Dan messily ate ribs, and let Holly dab away the sauce that had collected at the corner of his mouth. Beside them sat Stephen Strange, sorcerer supreme, with a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose, saved from the rain and the danger of being smashed. This was easier, somehow, than focusing on the confusing emotions that making love had stirred up between them, emotions that he was thoroughly afraid to look over. Dan placed it all aside and let her guide him through the afternoon. When it was over, after Brian and Ross were safely married, they would try to figure out where they stood.

Afterward, they stood together at the crotch of the wishing tree, hearing glass bottles clip and clank together as while they bent over the picnic table, selecting pencils and small slips of paper to be stuffed and hung up inside of empty pop bottles.

Dan felt a sense of continuity, of permanence as he scribbled out his wish. The people of this town had been coming to this tree and making their wishes for eons. Would they mark out Dan and Holly as trespassers in their paradise if they lingered too long?

He considered his wish for a minute. _I want to play an arena_ , he thought, then rejected it. _I want to stay with my friends forever,_ He crossed that out, too. Deeper wishes –for world peace, for his family’s safety – also danced through his head. But his eventual wish involved none of these things.

He let the bottle dangle, seeing it glint gently off of Holly’s own vessel. “So,” she wondered quietly, “what did you wish for?”

Dan shrugged. “If I say it totally won’t come true,” he said. 

He couldn’t admit the truth, not yet. Couldn’t make him say that his wish involved her.

That he hoped the trip would never end. 

**** 

Later that night, they stretched out on top of the van and watched the stars dance over their heads, and fate began to sing its siren song in the back of his mind. It was magic, beauty and love, calling him down, like a falling comet, like a meteor well-grounded.

*** 

“Hello birdies!” sang Holly, kneeling in the clearing. The Virginia Pals for Pigeons had allowed her in on the strict agreement that she’d promote their work on her channel – something Holly would have done without the mild bribe. Sitting with several fat babies on her knees, hopping and cooing, she laughed, her oversized sweater and jeans betraying flashes of the pale skin Dan had known with his mouth just scant days before.

The trip would be over in six hours. They’d soon be among friends in New Jersey, and the uncertainty he lived with would evaporate like rain in the desert. 

Dan’s skin-tight jeans grew even tighter at the memory, but he kept his eyes on the phone camera footage. When Holly switched places with him and he knelt with a handful of seeds in her place, he thought to himself that these pigeons were much sweeter and smaller than the ones he had watched scavenge for French fries in dumpsters all over New York.

“Aww, you like Dan, doncha? Look at youuu!” she sang to them, and Dan smiled. He loved the birb voice almost in spite of himself, even though it seemed to make Holly herself a tad bit embarrassed. He squatted and let them peck at him, crying softly out in dismay when one nibbled his fingertip, scolding the greedy and praising those who were patient. When his palm was empty they went to get more seed, and it was then that Dan noticed the way the sun lit Holly’s hair, the way it made her eyes sparkle. In a parrot enclosure, the head of the organization introduced them to an injured macaw, and Holly let it climb onto her shoulder, cooing to it. And in a single second, the space of a heartbeat or less, Dan realized he was in utter, inexplicable, but all-consuming love with this woman.

It was like taking a rock to the temple, or being crushed beneath a wheel. The realization was so sudden, so complete that he had no idea how he hadn’t realized it was more than simple lust. This was actual love, true love, staring him right in the face. 

She saw him watching and gave him one of her lovely, heartbreaking grins. Dan felt a wave of gladness strike his heart . All the while, he floated on a cloud of happiness. It followed him up the highway, every mile, until they were finally pulling to a stop at the Holiday Inn in Trenton.

Brian was waiting in the lobby with Ross, and with that, quite abruptly, reality came pouring back in.

****

“So, is there anything I should know about?”

Brian was usually far more direct than this, and Dan’s face crumpled in confusion as he unpacked in the motel room.

“About?”

“About the status of your relationship with Holly,” he said. Yep, there was that directness again. Dan cringed and turned back toward the suitcase. 

“It’s….um….God, Brian,” he muttered, withdrawing the suit he’d rented for the wedding from a garment bag and hanging it against the side of the TV console. 

“I noticed the way you were looking at her,” Brian said casually. “Like you’ve found something you’ve been missing. And your hand lingered on the small of her back for an interminable amount of time. Almost as if you’re quite interested in ensuring her well-being.”

Dan shrugged, became quite focused on the array of socks lined up before him. “Are you that bored, man?”

“No, I’m that stressed,” said Brian. “The rehearsal dinner’s tonight, in case you forgot. And Arin, Barry and Suzy are stuck in Montana trying to break out of a fog bank.”

“They’ll be here.”

“They may be, but Ross has been…squirrelly, I suppose. He said he’s got a big surprise he wants to show me tonight.” Brian leaned against the wall. “How do you refund hors d’ouvres?” 

“Right, he’s going to leave a super genius to go do…what Ross does.” Ross was like a brother to Dan, which was why he felt a hot thud of guilt in the pit of his stomach whenever he contemplated what he was doing with Holly. Which was illogical – they were divorced. Didn’t stop Dan from feeling like he was deep throating a bottle of acid every time he thought about it.

“He’s far younger than I am, and he’s got many more years ahead of him. He knows all about my daughter, but I’m afraid it might be too much for him.”

“But it’s Ross,” Dan pointed out, quite logically. “He can be distracted and single-minded, but he’s a wonderful guy.” Dan still believed that, down to the core of himself.

“I know,” Brian said. “Did I ever tell you where we kissed for the first time?”

“No,” Dan said, listening as he shoved two more pairs of jeans and some teeshirts into the dressed drawer. It would be easy enough to finish up when he had more time.

“It was after a concert. Ross wanted to go to this rock symphony thing, and you know how I feel about rock symphonies.” 

“That they’re a bastardized Frankenstenian mess of two wholly perfect things?” Dan asked.

“Exactly. But I went there for him. And he was grateful enough to kiss me and - yes, this is Ross I’m talking about – on the cheek. With that, it was very fait acompli.”

“Aww. You’re both so cute.”

“Fuck off,” said Brian. “But the way you look at her is the way he looked at me, so. Who’s the cute one now?”

Dan gave him a grin. “Do you really think I’m cute?” The insincerity in Brian’s voice had gone completely over his head.

“As a box of fluffy duckies,” said Brian, rolling his eyes, tone still insincere and now flat as a pancake. He jingled the keys of the truck, which he’d commandeered from Dan because its roomy belly was more conductive to the transportation of wedding flowers and cake to the site. He and Ross had talked about hiring professionals, but a ten-hour argument over wedding cake had strongly indicated that that wouldn’t be the best idea. “Come on, let’s get to the hall before Ross does any damage.”

*** 

“So when did you pork Dan?”

Holly’s jaw dropped. “Honestly, Ross…”

“I’m sorry – when did you and Dan ‘take flight on the wings of desire and touch the stars’?” he asked.

“I think that’s a little bit personal,” she muttered, rubbing away at her temples. The staff at the rehearsal hall had been pouring them glasses of wine in a nonstop fashion since they’d shown up, and she was starting to feel a little tipsy. 

“And who better to tell than your best friend?” He asked. Ross was that, technically – an ex, but a best friend. 

“We’ve….it’s weird and complex,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you. It’s something neither of us has talked about. And Suzy’s my best friend,” she said.

“Oh.” Ross shrugged. “Get that giant dick, Hol.”

“Oh my GOD, Ross!”

He laughed. “I want you to be happy! And judging from what I’ve seen, Dan’s got the goods to make you happy. For at least four minutes.”

“SO!” she said over-brightly, “how did things go with the baby during your layover?”

“Just fine. And as it turns out I’ve been inspired,” he said happily. He pulled out his phone and showed her a series of sketches. “Isn’t it cute?” he asked, and she had to agree – it looked unique, and the idea of a toddler super-heroine would likely appeal to many parents – at least the parents she was aware of. “It might be it, Holly – this might be the show I’ve been looking to make.”

“You’ve already got a show. It’s a very good show, and you’ve been getting better at pitching it to studios,” she said. Or he had just before their marriage had fallen into a heap of dust.

“I do, but it’s worth following, isn’t it?” His insecurity touched her heart. 

“I think so. But you don’t think it’s too much?”

Ross laughed. “There’s no such thing as too much, Hol. Not in life, and not with creativity.”

Holly shrugged. “Have you told Brian about this?”

“Not yet,” he said. “That’s going to be the big wedding surprise,” he said. 

“So you haven’t told him you’re setting aside the show you’ve worked on for three years plus, a show you have barely finished, to go after this new project that’s loosely based on his daughter.”

“Yep.”

“Oh God,” she mumbled.

Ross shrugged. “We love each other and I’ll tell him about it. He’ll probably say yes. Baby’d love the attention and in the end it might be good for her college fund.”

“Good luck,” she said. And then, to a passing waiter, “can we have some bread and water?” 

Anything to soak up the alcohol. The next time she saw Dan she wanted to be rock sober. 

They had to talk.

*** 

The rehearsal went well, as far as Dan could tell. Ross’ dad walked him up the aisle – his entire family had arrived en masse just before Dan and Holly had arrived, complete with his baby nephew, and Dan had fussed over them, when baby wasn’t competing for Dan’s full attention. Dan stood behind Brian, holding on to a stunt ring – the real band was in Brian’s pocket and apparently wouldn’t be moving from that spot until the wedding was through, even though it was supposed to be the best man’s job to hold on to the fucking thing. Dan couldn’t help but grin as the rabbi and priest they’d contracted for the occasion pushed through a shortened version of the ceremony – he could picture his own wedding running like this.

God, was it happening already? He could see Holly in a cute, modern dress – no, probably scarlet or bright green, or even her witch’s weeds – and he would wear a tux, because his mother would demand he wear a tux. They’d write their own vows, and get married in a little chapel in the middle of the woods.

And he had to stop himself from going further, thinking more deeply, because whenever he did that he got himself in trouble. Whenever he did that, the relationship started falling apart under scrutiny. 

When he did that, he ended up alone.

So Dan did what he did whenever he was nervous – he stuffed his face almost frantically. There was a spread after the rehearsal loaded with Australian biscuits and Jewish delicacies. Dan spooned up huge glutinous spoonfuls of kugel and ignored the notion of lox; he threw a few cookies on the plate. He come smell the Marmite wafting up toward him and took a direct right toward a folding table set up for the guests – and bumped right into Holly.

He blushed. She stammered.

“Dan? Can you…”

“Holly, I’m…”

Laughter. He tried again. “Holly,” he said, “do you wanna go for a walk after this is over?”

“Sure,” she said. He smiled. She smiled back.

The kugel sat like a bowling ball in his stomach, but Dan munched his way through the ordeal until his plate was empty, occasionally glancing up to see Holly nibble on her veggie patties, her salad, her dark chocolate pudding. 

When she went to dump her plate, he placed a hand awkwardly on her shoulder, and she turned to face him, smiling.

“Wanna walk now?”

She nodded. They moved together to the back door, and found themselves in a well-manicured garden.

The scent of lilies and roses were almost overwhelming. Dan could hear bees buzzing as they walked together up the pathway and pretended to pay attention to the flowers before them.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Holly asked. 

“Everything,” Dan admitted. 

She sighed. “Is it about what happened?” 

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Holly, I…what we’ve been doing is amazing. I’m so excited that we had so much fun together during the trip. But I’m not sure….”

She sighed. Sighed, and braced herself, as if she were ready for a sharp blow. Dan didn’t say anything else. “What aren’t you sure about?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m not sure about where we’re going. Or what we’re doing…”

“I knew it,” she said flatly.

Dan paused. “You knew what?”

She shook her head. “Dan, you’ve been doing this for years. Every time you do…this…it happens. You’re running away. Not even giving us a chance…”

“Are we an us?” he flushed and looked away. “Are you sure you’re not using me as a pressure valve? Somewhere easy to run to when things get a little too tough and you want a little relief?”

“God, Holly.” He hadn’t thought himself to be this obvious. He definitely hadn’t imagine that she’d expose him this way. “I don’t use people. You know me.”

“Do you?”

“What about you? Am I just some easy convenience because you’re not over Ross?!”

“I’m over Ross,” she said sharply. “As if you couldn’t tell, completely. I’m going to be standing up for him at his wedding tomorrow, for fuck’s sake!” But he could see the uncertainty in her eyes.

Thunder rolled in the distance. The creamy white light raining in on them began to close up, and it began to sprinkle. “I don’t want to jump into anything that would ruin our friendship. Are you sure you’re willing to deal with all of my rock star shit – the groupies, the whacky schedule, the travel? Can your anxiety take that?”

“And are you willing to live with the animals? With the fact that I don’t want kids?” Sadness crossed his features and she made a sound of dismay. “I have a feeling your problem isn’t with the animals.”

“We need to take a step back,” he begged. “This is freaking me out.”

“I’ll give you as much space as you want,” she declared. “I’ll…I’m going to go back to the hotel. I need time to think, too. I’ll go say bye to Ross. We’ll talk about it in California.”

“Holly…”

“Hol?” Ross called from the doorway. “Wanna take a picture with my dad? He won’t stop bugging me for one.”

Holly and Dan stared at each other for a minute. Then she pasted on a friendly smile and pushed past Dan, walking back up the short pathway, pushing past Ross, too, without a further word. 

Dan walked back toward Ross. “What did you say to her?”

“You know me,” Dan said. His smile was an inch or two from being bluntly bitter. “Butterfingers.”

Ross said nothing as Dan pressed by him. The rest of the evening was stiff and overly-merry with too much wine and food.

And razor sharp glances between Dan and Holly that seemed to speak volumes more than their words did.

*** 

“I can’t believe this is my life,” Dan said, leaning against the kitchen counter.

He and Ross were alone in Brian’s sister’s kitchen at three in the morning. The rest of the family were asleep – tucked safe in motels or slumbering under this very roof – but he and Ross had volunteered to go pick up Arin and Suzy and Barry when they got in at four, which meant they’d be catnapping from five ’til eleven, just an hour before the noon wedding.

It was a tight squeeze. Much like everything else in Dan’s life lately. 

“Believe it,” Ross said, rinsing off the bowl. “And I’ve earned it. Brian didn’t want a bachelor party and this is the last chance I have to unwind.” The air was filled with the warm, delicious scent of brownies baking – brownies Ross had doctored with weed butter, thanks to an old drug connection of Dan’s from his stoner days. “You know you don’t have to have some if you don’t want it.”

Dan’s answer was cut off by the chiming of the oven timer, and Ross retrieved the brownies from the oven and carefully scored them while they were still hot. “I don’t care, dude, just as long as you put it up somewhere safe where the baby won’t get her hands on it.”

The brownies were ready, and they looked particularly dense and fudgy to Dan’s eye as Ross placed the tin on the stove and started slicing at it. “I’m not dumb,” Ross said. “I’ll either eat the last of them or offer one to Holly. It looks like she needs one,” he said, with that typical Ross-level sense of fond menace. He went about pouring glasses of milk, and they carefully cut out five brownies and secreted the last two in a bag at the back of the refrigerator, then carried their gains to the living room. “You promise this is the good stuff?”

Dan nodded. “It’s that new strain - Purple Hayzee. Rick hasn’t fucked me over yet, so it should be great.”

Dan found The Wall on TV, and like a couple of stereotypical stoners they watched it and ate the hot dessert while sipping droughts of milk.

It didn’t really hit Dan until sometime past the middle of the movie that he was getting higher than he wanted to be, and the sensation made him immediately remember why he’d given up smoking in the first place. “Yeah, this was a bad idea,” he muttered, as his nerves tensed.

Ross looked over at him, blinking very slowly. “I have no idea what you mean,” he said serenely. 

“Of course you don’t,” Dan muttered, leaning back into the couch. 

“So, why do you think you fucked things up with Holly before they began?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you meant it,” Ross said, good naturedly. 

“It’s a long story,” Dan said. “I….I keep panicking. What we have is so special and it’s so new but…we’re moving really really fast. I don’t know Ross –if you were me what would you do?”

Ross’ smile was gremlin-like. That was the only way Dan could describe it – in fact it looked almost Grinch-esque when he was this high and from this angle. “Are you asking me for advice?”

“I guess so.”

“Really?”

“YES, Ross, I’m asking you for some fucking advice, so lay it on me!”

Ross nodded, took a drink of milk, and sat back on the couch. A minute passed before the words finally came from him. “Dan, stop being a dickhead.”

“Thank you. Absolutely sterling.”

“I’m sorry if you don’t like it but it’s that simple. You’re freaking yourself out about things that haven’t and probably won’t happen yet. So stop worrying and start living. Oh, and stop going on about how you’re ‘betraying’ me or some bullshit. We’re divorced. We like each other as friends now. It’s cool that you want to deep dick Holly.”

“Thank you for the permission,” Dan said flatly.

“You’re welcome,” he added happily, and then checked his phone. “Arin says he’s here and Suzy’s already happy about the rain.” He stood up and cracked his back, stuffing the last of the brownie into his mouth as he left.

“She would be,” Dan remarked, and flicked off the TV. It took him a minute but the dizziness went away, the anxiety and the slow-motion vision thing that had haunted him the last time he’d smoked up. 

Maybe things were changing. But he wasn’t going to risk taking too many changes. The funny thing about spending a full year walking through every open door was that when you were presented with the biggest, most golden and important door in existence the notion of adding a little caution to the mix seemed all the more practical. 

*** 

A few hours later, the door to the guest room stirred. Ross snuck into the room, carefully peeling off his hoodie, teeshirt and jeans. He’d need a shower tomorrow but the nice, peaceful high he’d gotten from the brownies still mellowly lingered on, inspiring thoughts of peace and brotherhood. “Hey,” Ross said, slipping into bed with Brian.

Brian’s wheezy snore answered him. A long sigh pressed itself from Ross’ lungs. He wrapped both arms around Brian’s soft body and took another snore right to his eardrum. A moment later Brian stirred awake and pulled the earplugs from his ears, blinking up at him. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” Ross said. “I took the guys to the hotel. They’re happy they’re here. Dan’s back there too. And I checked in on the baby on my way up, so everything’s fine.”

Brian’s shoulders relaxed. “Fine. Why did you wake me up?”

“I didn’t mean to,” he said. 

“Oh…”

“But, while you’re awake,” he said eagerly, “want to look at my latest idea?”

“If it’s that same ‘ice fishing for games’ thing, I swear I’m gonna…”

“No,” Ross said. He grabbed his phone and showed off the sketches he’d made. After a long moment of silence passed by, he asked, “what do you think?”

Brian’s expression was utterly inscrutable. “That looks like my daughter,” he said.

“It is,” Ross said, taken aback. “It’s OUR daughter. Spending time with her made me realize that there’s a whole market that’s being underserved, and there are girls like her who need superheroes that look and act like she does.”

Brian was nonplussed. “Ross, we’ve had this discussion. Once she’s out of pull-ups, we’re taking her off of social media. She needs to have a normal childhood, and thrusting her into the spotlight like this.”

“But we could pay off her college this way – and she’ll be way too young to remember any of this by the time she’s old enough to think about college or be made fun of for it.”

“You don’t know how dangerous it is out there,” Brian said. “I’m sorry, but the answer is no. I won’t risk it. I can’t risk it. Do you understand?”

“You’re not giving this a chance,” Ross said. “I think…”

“I know what you think. She’s your stepdaughter. If I lose her…” Brian covered his face with his palm. “If I lose her, I’ll lose a part of myself. I’ll lose everything. You don’t have children, and you don’t understand what it feels like. So…”

“Right,” Ross said. He felt like his heart was being yanked by a barbed-wire covered fist up through his throat, but he said, “right.”

In the battle between commerce and affection there was only one winner, and that winner was Eros every single time. 

But as Brian wrapped his arms around Ross, a little seed of doubt bloomed during the sleepless night, leaving him to stare at the ceiling, listen to Brian’s snoring.

Imagining the future. Imagining an idea drifting out from the iron grip of his imagination to sprawl, unbloomed and dead, to the concrete of rejection.

**** 

Holly woke up early that morning, to the sound of birds chirping and the smell of coffee brewing in a time-release pot on the side table. She felt happy and renewed –until the memory of the uncertainty, the near rejection, she and Dan had dealt one another came back to the forefront of her memory and she sank with a groan into the mattress. 

She allowed herself to wallow for a little while. Just a little. Until the morning sunlight stinging her eyes wide open demanded that she get up and seize the day.

Coffee, fruit and bread. A long shower. Perfume and make-up. Soon she slipped into a lovely pale violet dress and topped it with one of the golden necklaces that Suzy had gifted her with months ago, from her special collection of jewelry. 

A heart on wings. What a fitting metaphor for a wedding.

It was cloudy outside but warm, and the weatherman swore that the sun would soon turn up. She took an Uber to the multipurpose room where Ross and Brian would be married, a few spaces away from the one where they’d held their small rehearsal. She left her chess set on a table with a blue runner and a punch bowl. 

Their choice of rooms was fittingly Brian – instead of a fancy hotel that would make his friends uncomfortable, or a church or synagogue that would’ve been unfit for a multi-faith ceremony, he’d chosen a simple room that could be easily fancied up. She knew she was far too early for the ceremony, but she still moved to get a close seat, settling on an empty bench and resting her small pocket book on her lap. They’d done what they could to cheer the room up; there were large bouquets of forget me nots, and delicate sprays of paperwhites, and long white runners made of silk held down with plaster columns. Everything was far sweeter and more delicate than Holly would have thought Ross would’ve liked. Then again, she really didn’t know her ex that well within the context of his relationship with Brian.

Eventually, the waiting wore on her nerves. Sitting there playing with her phone for an hour in a room set aside to cheer the marriage of her ex while her feelings were so uncertain didn’t sound like her idea of a good time. And so Holly headed outside, back into the little garden where she and Dan had had their uncomfortable conversation. Had she made a mistake to set aside the inevitable for a few weeks? Would he find someone else? Someone easier, with less baggage, a friend who was sweet, nubile but much less of a risk than someone who lived so close to the bone?

She didn’t expect to find Ross standing outside of the hall, one foot propped against the building, in a full suit and playing with his phone all alone.

She approached carefully. “Hi,” she said. “Happy wedding?”

He gave her a sideways smile. “Oh, the happiest,” he said, and sat down on a stone bench between two enormous pink hedges.

She sat down at the far opposite end of it. “What happened? Did you and Brian have a fight?”

“Is it a fight when the man you’re in love with tells you to stifle your dreams because he’s really paranoid that his daughter’s going to end up getting hurt?”

Holly frowned. “Is that the idea you wanted to show him?” Ross nodded. “I’m so sorry it didn’t go well.”

“I’m glad it didn’t go well,” he blurted out. “Maybe this is a sign. A big flashing slab of neon saying ‘hey, Ross, this is a shitty idea, go hook up with another guy and spare yourself the pain.”

Holly settled her chin into her palm. “You need to tell him this. Tell him how much it means to you – and maybe change the baby in the short so it doesn’t look like her and so neither of you have to worry about her getting hurt.”

“Yeah,” Ross said quietly. “That’s a great idea, Hol. Thank you.”

She shrugged. “I’m always glad to help you. Since we’re friends.” Not best friends, not yet.

He scooted across the bench, plunked his head heavily onto her shoulder, his phone tapping his knee. “Holly,” he said sadly, “why didn’t we work out?”

She rubbed away at his anxiety-stiffened shoulder. “Because you’re very, very gay, Ross,” she reminded him.

“Well, I’m very bi, but still,” Ross said, “I think it’s a pretty decent question.” 

She sighed. “Because I’m not the same woman who married you five years ago. And you’re better suited to Brian. And,” she said, “I guess I was meant to be with somebody else.” 

The rain streaked onto them now, a few last fat clouds spitting showers enough to dampen their hair. It spattered against his shirt and looked like stray teardrops when she tried to blot them. “That’s the problem,” he said. “I knew the very second I kissed Brian’s cheek that something was going to happen. I didn’t know if it was going to be the right thing – but it felt like fate. And I wish I had thought more about it, because I ended up hurting you, and you – you’re a fucking amazing girl, Holly Conrad. And I’m always going to love you.”

She nodded. “You just loved Brian more.”

“No,” he said quite quickly. “Not more. With a different intensity, in a very different way, but never, ever more. I can promise you that the decision was the hardest one I’ve ever made.”

She looked out onto the rainy, ugly July morning. She could feel his panic fading away, and the relief in his shoulders, and something settled in Holly’s heart. If Ross had loved her the way he’d loved her once upon a time, she would have never had this trip. She would have never had hugging Doctor Strange in a New Orleans bedroom, or busking for change in a McDonald’s parking lot, or running naked into the middle of a July gully washer. She would never have had to hold Dan’s hand while they desperately ate a steak that was bigger than her head. She would not have had Dan in her life in this way at all. She would have gone on watching him hurt himself and settled for friendship. 

“I think you made the right choice,” she said. “I think…as much as I loved you, I knew there was something missing. As much as I wanted to be with you, there was always this sharp little want in the back of my head. And you – you became my family, my rock, my weight. I still want you to be that, Ross, always – my family, the person I can run to. But…. I think Dan could be a rock, too. A family. The one I can talk to when it’s getting stormy out. I’ve been through some of the stuff he’s been through, and I think I could give him help that he wouldn’t have with anyone else.” 

Holly realized that she wasn’t even pep talking Ross anymore – it was more like she was talking to herself. And when she looked at Ross after this revelation spilled forth from her lips, he was smiling. “I’d love to see that happen for you,” he admitted. 

“Going back to what I said before. Even really successful people have messed up lives,” she said. “Not that our lives are messed up. Complicated. Our lives are weird and complicated. And you have the right be to be mad and sad just like every other person.” It occurred to her that she needed to have this conversation with Dan. If he wanted to sit down and have it with her. If it wasn’t too late. She desperately hoped it wouldn’t be too late.

“So the short version is that I need to talk to Brian?”

She nodded. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something grey-haired move in the archway of the garden. Brian was standing there in the doorway, his eyes wide, pleading, as he watched the both of them. “I think so,” she said, squeezing his shoulder. “Yeah, I think it’s time you talked this out with Brian.”

She let go of him then, and backed out of the way, leaving the both of them to converse in silence and peace.

****

“I didn’t know you felt that strongly about this,” Brian said, gently thumbing over the drawings in Ross’ phone again. “And it’s honestly a fabulous concept. You’ve got a great idea here.”

“Thank you,” Ross said. “The way you were talking last night it sounded like you thought the whole idea was bad.”

Brian shook his head. “I was just worried about her,” he said.

“I guess….I just didn’t think about what kind of bad impact it’d have on the baby. I didn’t think about anything, other than finally having a good idea I could sink my teeth into. I’ll change the design so it doesn’t look like her.” 

Brian took ahold of his hand gently, and just as gently squeezed the tips of his fingers. “Why don’t we…” he took the stylus in hand and pressed freckles to the character’s cheeks. “There. Now it’s perfect. And you owe me half the royalties on licensing.”

Ross raised and an eyebrow. “That’s not much of a change.”

“I know. But it does raise plausible deniability,” he said. “And…maybe I’m a little wrong. Maybe she deserves to point at a TV and say ‘hey, that was made for me. My dad worked hard on it and I want everyone to know that he thought I was so cool that I deserved to have a show named after me.”

“You mean her stepdad.”

“No. I mean her dad.”

Ross grinned. God, he was a lucky man. “I promise I’ll be good to you. And I’ll take your trust seriously.” 

“Thank you,” Brian said. There was actual sincerity in his voice, and Ross suddenly realized that his responsibility didn’t just extend to making a good marriage with Brian to make sure every single one of them would be contented and happy – it extended to keeping the baby safe and happy, to thinking of what sort of adult she would be. Before this moment, he’d seen that responsibility as a heavy yoke that carried an unfathomable weight that would crush him with its power. But they were double-yoked, and the weight would never be a true burden again. He would never be alone again. The power of it gladdened his heart, and he hoped their love would extend to building a future that would outlive them both.

“So,” Brian said, gently putting the stylus back in place and then handing Ross his phone back, “I understand there’s going to be a wedding today.”

Ross grinned. “Yep. There’s going to be music and everything.”

“Sounds amazing. I suppose we don’t want to be late,” he said, and kissed Ross on the cheek before standing up.

Ross nodded, and rubbed the warm spot he’d left behind. Hand in hand, they made haste toward the door.

And above them the sun broke through the clouds.

 

**** 

It was blazingly warm by the time the ceremony began, and Dan swore he was going to spontaneously sprout functioning sweat glands and soak right through his suit as Brian stood to recite his vows. He planted the plain golden ring in Dan’s hand two seconds after his sister began playing the wedding march on his keyboard. Only Brian would rent a keyboard for his wedding.

“Don’t lose track of it. I know where you parked,” he reminded Dan, with that intense, angry Ninja Brian gaze that reminded Dan of the day they’d conceived the psychotic ninja. That felt like forty years ago as he watched Ross walk up the aisle in a room packed with their friends. Arin and Suzy were sitting up front, looking tired but somehow proud, and Ross’ family had at least sixty cameras pointed in his direction. 

When Dan looked across the aisle he saw Holly. And saw her look away the second he tried to meet her eyes.

The beauty of the moment rolled over Dan, bathing him in a sensation of rightness, of joy. The opening remarks were sweet. They spoke of joining together to share burdens, of making a family that would last the test of time. 

Ross’ speech included more details about kissing Brian after that concert; that they had kissed again, under a shade tree at Brian’s place, and that, it seemed had changed everything. Brian spoke of watching Ross with his daughter and knowing – wholly, truly – that this was the man he was meant for. They thanked the women who had allowed them to get to this point.

Then Dan was handing the ring over. Then Holly was handing Ross Brian’s ring. Brian stepped on a glass, and for some reason the sound made Dan feel melancholy. As he never had before, he wondered how he would end up – if he’d find someone. If he’d be okay with being alone.

Suddenly the rabbi was speaking a blessing, and the priest, too, offered one. Dan couldn’t help but smile when the pronounced the ceremony over, pronounced Ross and Brian unified. 

The whole thing had taken less than ten minutes and changed their lives wholly.

*** 

At the reception, Dan danced with the baby when she tugged on his pant leg. He held her pressed to his heart and let the room sway around them, happy and loud and rather over-bright. When her fathers danced for the first time as a married couple, he reached down to boost her up.

He danced with Ross’ mom and Brian’s sister and Suzy, who leaned into his chest and took hold of his ear.

“Maybe,” she suggested, “you should talk to Holly.”

Dan watched her nervously standing at the edge of the crowd. Suddenly, somehow, all of the barriers between himself and commitment fell away. Why couldn’t he have it all? Who said Holly wasn’t perfect, wasn’t destined to be with him? He grinned and gave Suzy a hug. “I’m going to do better than that,” he said, before running over to the house band and bribing them to let him take the microphone.

“Um…attention everyone,” Dan said. “Hi. It’s Danny,” he shook his head at his own self-consciousness. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately…”

“AND YOU HAVEN’T DIED YET!” yelled Brian from the back of the room.

“Brian shut up!” he hissed. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about a special lady I know,” he said. “Um…the rest of you know her too. Her name is Holly.” 

A tiny red gel spotlight promptly picked her out of the audience, to his surprise. 

“I’ve been putting emphasis on the wrong parts of my life lately. I’ve been looking for love in work. And I’ve been looking the wrong way for love. It’s been a mixed-up mess. And it took a trip with Holly to make me see what I’ve been missing out on. And that maybe, the next time love stares me in the face I ought not to blink.” 

He then tossed over his shoulder, in a succinct quick yelp, “hit it!” 

The band struck up the familiar opening chords of “I Want To Know What Love is” by Foreigner as Dan stared her in the face. The first chorus melted like honey in his mouth. 

_”In my life,”_ he sang, _there’s been heartache and pain. I don’t know if I can face it again. I can’t stop now, I’ve traveled so far to change this lonely life._

He dug his teeth into the chorus, trying to project every ounce of emotion in his chest, trying to make her feel what he was feeling, trying to let her know that he wanted her, that he loved her, more than anyone in the world.

He’d admitted that to himself when he saw her tend to an injured parrot lo, so many weeks ago. Now he had to admit it to her.

Halfway through the second chorus he noticed Ross and Arin had pulled out their cellphones and were waving them in the air like lighters. Because of course they were. “Really, guys?” he asked between lines. And they laughed and he swiveled his gaze back toward Holly. 

He moved away from the stage they’d set up, walking to her confidently, boldly. And then, without much effort, without much conscious effort, he stood before her – emotionally nude.

“Holly, I don’t want a moment, or a second. I want a fucking lifetime.” He pulled the microphone away from his lips. “I love you. Do you love me?”

She nodded. She nodded, and tears sprang to her eyes.

Everything else – the rest of the song, the howling of their friends, the fact that they were in public – nothing else mattered. 

When she kissed him at last the world fell away.

*** 

**Two Years Later**

“Oh my God, Dan!”

He was sucking on her earlobe, his hand shoved down the emerald green tights she had donned that morning. “Shh,” he whispered. “Everyone will see.”

She pulled her mouth away from his chest. “Let them see,” she babbled. “Let them see **Dan!** ” She came suddenly, harshly her head striking the tip of his chin as it rocked forward.

“Not on our...HOLLY!” she mashed his face into the top of her head as he whined, hips bucking.

She had just enough presence of mind to shift his dick away from her clothing, so he came against the tree.

Panting, they recovered together, slumping, shaking. “That…” he kissed the crown of her head, “was intense.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled into his neck, and then watched through half lidded eyes as he pulled his hand from between her legs and licked his fingertips. 

“So did it take the edge off your wedding jitters?” he wondered.

Holly smiled. “Yep. And now I can cross ‘sex in the woods’ off of my bucket list.”

Dan grinned and kissed her again, and she tasted cinnamon and brimstone. They were forty feet away from the outdoor bower they’d created for the wedding, and the knight’s costume Holly had made for him had been rucked thoroughly askew by their attempt at mutual masturbation.

“Do I look presentable?” Holly asked, giving him a quick twirl. 

“Always,” he said, tugging down the hem of his own tunic slightly. “But you always are. When you’re feeding birds or when you’re cleaning the bathroom. When you’re singing or trying to tell people how to make props. Even when you’re trying to give me mouth to mouth at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.”

She flushed. “You passed out.”

He smiled. “I woke up in a med tent with the most beautiful woman in the world looking down on me. I think I picked pretty well.”

The story was infamous now. He’d told it on Grumps as a way of explaining why and how he and Holly had gotten together, and the concluding line – “and that’s how Holly almost made me religious” – had been splashed on fan merchandise. She’d be embarrassed, if she weren’t so overwhelmed with love for him. 

Things were changing, she supposed. Lots of things were changing.

“Do you think Ross and Brian will make it?” he asked, taking her hand and walking with her slowly back to their little encampment. 

“I hope so.” Ross and Brian were co-pitching the show Ross had created in LA, to as many executives as they could convince to listen to them. They were making headway – headway that had been slowly stymied by the fact that they had two more children to look after, siblings adopted out of the foster system when baby had turned six. Holly was proud of Ross – all of his fatherly self-doubt had disappeared, and all of Brian’s grasping fear had modulated. They were the envy of most around them, and between the two of them had an amusing, active, and clearly loving connection. “You can’t have a wedding without a best man!”

Or best men, she thought with a smile. 

“Are you sure your mom doesn’t mind that the two of us are going to go out in full cosplay for the wedding?” Holly asked Dan.

“Nah – mom’s really easygoing. You know her – she just wants me to be happy,” he said “And she wants whatever makes you happiest too.”

Holly hoped that was the case. She’d strove mightily to make her new mother-in-law to be proud of her. Perhaps it was the result of missing her grandmother or the need to fit into the Avidan clan, but she’d stirred up dozens of dishes for the reception – everything from kugel to chocolate-dipped matzo. Deb’s response had been fond and noncritical, and Holly clung to the praise. She wanted the reminder, that she was capable in ways that were conventional and unconventional alike. That she could feel safe in the hope that she’d make Dan the happiest man in the world.

He was good at making her the happiest woman, after all.

“You know, I was hoping you’d bring Stephen to the party.”

She laughed. “He’s safe back home with the cats,” she said. 

“I guess keeping him at the head of the table would have been weird,” he said. “He deserves more than to look like some kind of weird sacrifice.” 

“Lord of the Stephens. That’s what we should call our next D&D campaign,” she said. 

“Oh my God,” he laughed. “I bet Ross and Arin would fight us.” The fact that they were even talking about this, plotting their leisure time, showed how far Dan had managed to step back from his career. He and Arin had talked it out, and they’d decided to rotate other folks in the office into their ‘Grump’ and ‘Not so Grump’ slots every once in awhile – just to give the two of them more leisure time and even more chances to relax and take in the richness of their rewards. They’d scaled back most of their NSP and Starbomb duties as well, and that was fine with Brian – doing one album a year, three videos and a string of short concerts. The key was balance. The key was not to collapse in frustration and exhaustion every other week. Dan didn’t realize how close he’d been to completely losing it until he stepped back and thought about it. Holly had saved his life, or so he told her.

She supposed she’d saved a lot of people, just as he’d saved her, just by taking a chance on a trip with her.

And now they were standing at the foot of a hill. At the top were their friends – yes, Ross and Brian had arrived too, they could see them in the distance. And Arin and Barry and Suzy and Joe…all of the people who meant something to them were there and waiting for them. Holly looked over at Dan, at his flower-strewn pathway that led toward eternity. He was wearing roses in his hair and his fingers were gentle as they took hers. They would come together to the rabbi who would link them in eternity together, say their vows in a bower of trees, and head off to a honeymoon – a trip through Canada, living in a motor home and soaking in the warmth of the summer breeze. And they’d be doing it side-by-side.

Holly wasn’t afraid of that idea. Not anymore.

Instead she felt certain. She felt calm. 

She felt as if it was meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Some quick facts about this fic!
> 
> * In the real world, a trip like Dan and Holly's would take over seven days to complete; I tracked their stops using Google Maps for realism's sake. 
> 
> * Several of the places they stop off at (besides the Excalibur) are real places. See if you can pick them out!
> 
> * If you want to read even MORE of my fic, check out my [Tumblr!](http://devilgate-drive.tumblr.com)
> 
> * And if you want to read more fics set in this universe, you can, for this is a prequel! Dan and Holly's post-marriage (and post-baby) lives are covered in my fics [I Get No Kick From Champagne,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9509597) [Mere Alcohol Doesn't Thrill Me at All](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9827987), [The Present,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7317355) and [Catering](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7475652)


End file.
